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A Theory of the Majority Canon

Timothy H. Lim Professor of Hebrew Bible & Second Temple Judaism University of Edinburgh
The end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century saw a notable consensus of opinion over the emergence of the canon of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. According to this broad agreement, the Old Testament canon developed in three stages: the Torah or Pentateuch was closed around 500 BCE, followed by the books of the Prophets (neviim) in the third or fourth century, and finally the Writings (kethuvim) at the council of Jamnia in 90 CE.1 In the past generation, however, this consensus was shattered as scholars

tore down the pillars that propped up what became known as the three stage theory. Questions were raised about the unwarranted christianization of Jamnia as a council and the way that the consensus characterized the development of the canon in a strictly sequential manner. The supposed schism of the Samaritans from the Jews who returned from exile was also queried as a reliable foundation for the dating of the closing of the Torah of the Judaeans. What emerged in the past generation was not so much another consensus,

but a fragmentation of views. Opinion was now divided and remains so today about the history of the formation of the canon. Sid Leiman and Roger Beckwith advocated an earlier closing of the canon in the second century BCE, during the 1 So Frants Buhl, Kanon und Text des Alten Testaments (Leipzig: Faber, 1891); G. Wildeboer, Die
Entstehung des alttestamenlichen Kanons (Gotha, 1891); and especially H. E. Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament (London: MacMillan and Co., 1892).

Maccabean period.2 Albert Sundberg and John Barton argued that the canon remained open well into the common era.3 They did not specify when it closed. In the following, I will summarise a theory that I have advanced.4 I

propose that one canon, the Pharisaic canon, became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism in the years following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Before the emergence of this one canon of Rabbinic Judaism there were several canons. Each community had its own understanding of the collections that made up authoritative scriptures, but it was the Pharisaic canon that eventually became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism, because the majority of those who re- founded post-70 Judaism were Pharisees.

Reconsidering the Origins of the Canon

Impetus for reappraising the origins of the canon came from several quarters. There was renewed interest in the dating, formation and emergence of the Torah in the Persian and early Hellenistic period, which prompted a reassesment of the collection known as the books of Moses. What did the term torah signify by way of books of the Jewish canon and what role did the Persian imperial government have in the elevation of its status? Probably the most important source of the reconsideration of the origins

of the canon stems from the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. These well known 2 The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: the Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence (Hamden: Archon
Books, 1976); and The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985). 3 The Old Testament of the Early Church (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1964); and Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., 1986). 4 See my study in the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library series, The Formation of the Jewish Canon (New Haven, CT: YUP, forthcoming 2013).

Jewish manuscripts were discovered in the Judaean Desert by the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran about sixty-five years ago. They include all the books of the traditional Hebrew Bible (except Esther), sectarian writings, apocryphal works, and other previously unknown compositions. Here was an opportunity to examine one Jewish communitys understanding of canon. But scrolls scholarship was changing. In the past, the collection of nine

hundred or so manuscripts was considered the library of a Jewish sectarian community that lived at Qumran who are moreover identified with the Essenes known from the classical sources of Philo, Josephus and Pliny. The Qumran- Essene hypothesis broadly remains the consensus, but in recent years it has changed in so many ways that one could rightly ask whether it is still one and the same theory. Khirbet Qumran, with its extensive cemetery and water system, is no

longer considered an isolated, sectarian settlement, but a site that has material connections with other places in Judaea. The chronology of the communal phase has been re-dated by a generation to 100 BCE, thus precluding an origin of the sect under Jonathan or Simon Maccabee. Khirbet Qumran has been decentralized as the motherhouse of Essenism.5 Significantly, the concept of the Qumran library has been challenged.

Not all the scrolls should be characterized as sectarian. The biblical scrolls, accounting for some two hundred or so original manuscripts, do not show any 5 See Current Issues in Dead Sea Scrolls Research in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea
Scrolls ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: OUP, 2010). Notably John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community. The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), who argues that sectarian communities of the scrolls were dispersed throughout Judaea and not concentrated at Qumran.

evidence of a sectarian character. They are the biblical texts of Jews in the late Second Temple period. In fact, the notion of library misleads if one understands by it a corpus

that the sect had carefully collected. The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise a heterogeneous collection of texts; therefore, the biblical books that belong to the collection do not ipso facto mean that they are authoritative for the community. It is within scrolls scholarship that the issues related to the canon have

been most sharply raised. Should one even use terms like biblical and canon to describe the authoritative scriptures of the sectarian communities? Is it legitimate to label certain texts as biblical when the concept of canon in the sectarian scrolls is not fully developed?6

Implied Notion of Canon

An examination of relevant passages from the scrolls and other important Jewish and Christian writings shows that there was indeed a notion of canon in the Second Temple period, even if ancient Jews did not have a term for it. When Jews used such titles as the book of Moses or the books of the prophets, they imply a collection of writings. When Rabbis used the term outside books to describe heretical books, they must have known which books belonged inside, but they did not call them inside books. Instead, they called them kitvey ha- qodesh or holy scriptures. Finally, the debate in the Mishnah over the status of

6 Terminological issues are discussed in my Authoritative Scriptures and the Scrolls in Oxford
Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ch. 12.

Qohelet or Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs supposes that the Rabbis must have known which writings defiled the hands.7

The Nature of Prophecy

In the Second Temple period, the concept of canon varied from one community to the next as each group formulated its own notion of authoritative scriptures. Why they did so cannot now be known with certainty, but one reason may be found in the nature of prophecy. There was a widely shared belief that scripture was prophetic and inspired. The divine origin of scripture, however, admits varying interpretations.

The prophet regarded by some as the true oracle could be considered by others as the false proclaimer, depending on the discernment of each community. Prophetic writings are open to different interpretations. Moreover, there were different kinds of prophetic writings. The validity of predictive prophecy is easily established. The Temple

Scroll provides a pragmatic fix: How shall we recognize that which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the prophecy is not fulfilled and does not come to pass, that is a prophecy I have not spoken (11Q19 61:2-4).

7 The principle of tumat yadayimthat holiness defiles the handsis counter-intuitive and
perplexing. I have suggested that the rabbis thought of holy scriptures as sacred objects, like the Ark of the Covenant, which have the ability to make mundane hands impure (see my The Defilement of the Hands as a Principle Determining the Holiness of Scriptures JTS 61.2 [2010]: 501-15)

However, not all prophecy is predictive and in fact much of what passes

for prophecy in the biblical texts is better described as admonition, warning and counsel. The Deutero-Pauline letter of 2 Timothy famously described prophetic writings as follows: all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness (3:16). But what is profitable is open to interpretation. Non-predictive prophecy admits different kinds of authority and consequently different kinds of authoritative texts.

Temple Books rather than Official Canon

In previous studies on the canon, scholars sometimes assumed that there was a collection of scriptures at the Temple of Jerusalem that served as the official canon of Judaism. Scriptural scrolls were indeed found at the Temple, and some of them were used by scribes for rudimentary exercises of textual criticism, but there is no evidence of an official canon prescribed from the centre. Despite what some scholars believe, 2 Maccabees 2:13-15 does not

describe the establishment of a library at Jerusalem in the time of Judas Maccabeus. This Jewish leader gathered books in a general sense. The books that he collected were those that had fallen to pieces and damaged in the war of Antiochus. He gave them back to the Judeans as part of the restoration of the Jewish heritage. It is difficult to escape the impression that the role attributed by scholars to the supposed Temple library in the promulgation of the official canon is influenced, consciously or not, by the conciliar model.

 Torah in the Persian and Hellenistic Period

Tracing the formation of the canon is an involved task, made complex by the diversity of the sources that stretch over a period of several centuries. These ancient sources should not be harmonised. The ancient sources attest to a diversity of conceptions of authoritative scriptures. The Judeans who gathered in the square before the Water Gate heard

Ezra read from the book of the Torah of Moses, but the account of Neh 8 is highly stylised. It is an idealised description that represents Ezra as a second Moses. It is unlikely that Ezra read the whole of the Pentateuch from first light until midday, since that would presuppose reading more than sixteen verses per minute for six hours straight! It is the biblical citations embedded in Neh 8-10 that provide a clue to the

books in view; Neh 9 cites passages from the first six books of the traditional canon: Genesis (Neh 9:6, 7-8), Exodus (Neh 9:9-11, 12-21), Leviticus (Ezra 3:4; 6:19-22; Neh 8:14-17; 10:32; 13:15-22), Numbers (Neh 9:12-22), Deuteronomy (Ezra 3:4; 6:19-22; Neh 10:32; 13:1-2; 13:25), and Joshua (Neh 9:23-25; cf. 9:26- 37). Matching the biblical quotations with the titles, however, is not so

straightforward. Nehemiah uses six designations: the book of the torah of Moses with which the Lord had commanded Israel (Neh 8:1); the torah (Neh 8:2); the book of the torah of God (Neh 8:8); the torah that the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses (Neh 8:14); the book of the torah of God 7

(Neh 8:18) and the book of the torah of the Lord their God (Neh 9:3). It is unlikely that all these titles refer to the Pentateuch, since the book of Joshua is also cited in Neh 9:23-25, and Josh 1:7-9 clearly distinguishes itself from the Mosaic torah. One solution is to recognise that the term torah is used loosely in Ezra-

Nehemiah. It could refer to the Pentateuch or to a larger collection of the first six books including the book of Joshua, known as the Hexateuch in scholarly parlance. The term torah is not always restricted to the Mosaic reference. Significantly in Neh 9:3, the title is formulated without mention of Moses (the book of the torah of the Lord their God) and the subsequent review of Israelite history includes the conquest narratives as found in the book of Joshua (Neh 9:23-25). In Ezra-Nehemiah, therefore, torah refers to both the Pentateuch and the Hexateuch, to laws and narratives.

The Canon in Second Century Egypt

The Jewish community in second century BCE Alexandria conceived of the nomos (the Greek translation equivalent of torah) more or less as the Pentateuch; although the term may also have a narrower or wider meaning in Hellenistic Jewish literature. According to the anonymous Jewish author of The Letter of Aristeas, who was writing in the second century BCE, Jewish law was translated from Hebrew into Greek in the third century BCE at the request of the librarian in Alexandria; the task was executed under the auspices of Eleazar the High Priest of Jerusalem; and the project funded by the royal patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 BCE), the king of Egypt.

This legend of the origins of the Septuagint served as the charter myth of

Alexandrian Jewry that was reacting to the editing and standardization of the Homeric epics. The strategy adopted by the author of the Let.Arist. was to recount the myth of the Greek rendering by having the Alexandrians reenact the Sinai pattern in order to validate the translation of the Jewish law as a new revelation. Also in the second century BCE Egypt, the Prologue of the Wisdom of

Jesus ben Sira reflects another conception of canon, but it is different from that of the Let.Arist. The grandson arrived in Egypt in 132 BCE and probably spent the next fifteen years translating his grandfathers book of wisdom from Hebrew to Greek. The Prologue has been at the centre of much scholarly debate: Does it refer to a closed tripartite canon or an open bipartite one? Does it imply a criticism against existing Greek translations of the biblical texts? The Prologue should be understood in the light of the scribal curriculum

of Sir 39:1-3. It is the grandsons preface to his grandfathers book of wisdom and it invites all those who love learning to read the sapiential writing and profit by it in living according to the law. The intended audience are probably the Greek speaking, Jewish scribes of Egypt. These scribes are to help the laity (those without them [i.e. books]) in speech and writing (through the spoken and written word). In the Prologue, the grandson commends his grandfathers book of

wisdom to other scribes. He explains that Jesus ben Sira, the scribe par excellence, had devoted himself to the reading of the Law ( ) and the Prophets ( ) and the other books of our ancestors ( 9

 ). Having acquired considerable proficiency in them, he has himself written a book of wisdom that should be included in the scribal curriculum. The definiteness of the three categories is no evidence of the closed

tripartite canon, as some have suggested. Rather, it is required by the grammar: the law, the prophets and the other books of our ancestor in the Prologue refer to the syllabus that the ideal scribe is to study in Sir 39:1-3. That syllabus consists only of ancient Israelite literature of various genres, and does not include the books of other ancient peoples. The scribe must not just study the law, but also Israelite wisdom, prophecies, discourse, parables and proverbs. It is not specified which books are implied in these genres, but if the

scriptural references in Sir 44-50 are anything to go by, then the scribal syllabus would have included all the books of the traditional canon except Ruth, the Song of Songs, Esther and Daniel. The books classified by the grandson fall into a pattern of the law and the prophets plus an unspecified number of other ancestral books, including those of the grandfathers book of wisdom. The Wisdom of Ben Sira does not attest to the closed canon. How can one reconcile the two conceptions of authoritative scriptures in

second century BCE Egypt? One way is to recognise that the Wisdom of Ben Sira is a transplant from a Judaean setting. It was originally intended for the house of study (beth midrash; Sir 51:23 [Heb]) in Jerusalem and only subsequently brought to Egypt and translated. Whereas The Letter of Aristeas reflects the point of view of the diasporan Jewish community in Alexandria and defines its

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canon as the Pentateuch. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, likewise assumed that the Jewish law was the Pentateuch.

Sectarian Authoritative Scriptures

The sectarian community reflected in the scrolls did not have a developed concept of authoritative scriptures. By this, I mean that there was no clear conception of a closed list, nor a strict demarcation of those books that were eventually included in the traditional canon from other books that were also considered authoritative. There is virtual absence of any discussion of the status of authoritative

books. Nonetheless, one can piece together from passing references in the scrolls to show that by the second half of the first century BCE, the sectarians had an implicit sense of authoritative scriptures in the form of the book of Moses, the books of the prophets, and one or more versions of the psalter. The book of Moses consists of the books of Genesis to Deuteronomy. The prophetic books include several propheciesIsaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekielas well as sub- collections of Samuel-Kings, the minor prophets, and the psalms. There was not a third division, despite the attempts by some to read it out of a badly mutilated line in a scroll called 4QMMT. The phrase in Da[vid] (found only in 4Q397) is not a reference to the psalms or the whole of the writings; it refers either to the deeds of David or to the king as an ideal figure. Some non-biblical scrolls too were regarded as authoritative. The book of

Jubilees was considered an authoritative perush or legal explanation of the

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Pentateuch in the Damascus Document (CD 16:1-3). It is not part of the Torah of Moses, and is secondary to it, but it nonetheless commands authority. Everything is to be found in the Torah of Moses, but not everything is clear. The sectarian is, therefore, exhorted to bind himself by a solemn oath to the Mosaic torah as it is specified in the book of Jubilees. The sectarian exegesis of biblical prophecy, called the pesher (plural:

pesharim), also appears to have been authoritative. Its authority stems from the claim that God not only revealed to the prophets of old, but also continued to do so to the Teacher of Righteousness (1QpHab 7:4-5). Thus, both the interpretative method and the content of that exegesis are authoritative. In a pivotal passage of the Damascus Document that interprets Isa 24:17, the pesherite comment is cited as authoritative (CD 4:12-19). Other non-biblical writings appear to have had some authority in the

sectarian community, such as those of the Hodayot or Thanksgiving Psalms, the Temple Scroll, the books of Enoch, and 4QInstruction. Further work needs to be done to tease out the nature of their authority. At this point, I would identify two characteristics of the sectarian concept

of authoritative scriptures. First, it represents a dual pattern of authority by which the traditional biblical texts serve as the source of the sectarian interpretation, but is in turn defined by it. Sectarian hermeneutics acknowledge the authority of the biblical texts, but also subvert it by wresting control of the meaning. Second, there is a graded authority of non-biblical texts, beginning with biblical books, the book of Jubilees and the pesher and extending to other sectarian and non-sectarian works. 12

Holy Books of the Essenes and Therapeutae

Related to the sectarian communities of the scrolls, but distinguishable from them, are the Essenes and Therapeutae. Once thought to be one and the same as the Qumran community, the Essenes are still broadly identified with the yahad and the community of the Damascus Document. By contrast, the Therapeutae have been reconfigured as part of the philosophical school of allegorical exegesis in first century Alexandria rather than as a daughter sect of the Essenes. 8 Philo describes the pedagogical role of the ancestral laws of the Essene

community in keeping with his own understanding of the canon as the Pentateuch. By contrast, Josephus associates the Essenes holy books with different sorts of purifications which are likely to refer more generally to the Pentateuch rather than just Leviticus and Numbers. He also mentions that the Essenes had prophetic apophtegms and swore to preserve the books of their sect. This description, while not entirely clear, is consistent with what is found in the scrolls. As for the canon of the Therapeutae, much attention has been focused on

Philos description of the law, the prophetic oracles, the psalms, and the other books as a four-part canon. In its context (On the Contemplative Life 24-28), however, it is unlikely that individual, impecunious Therapeuts could each have had the equivalent of a private library in his small room, given the costs of book- production in antiquity. Rather, it seems more likely that Philo was describing 8 See Joan Taylor and Philip Davies, The So-Called Therapeutae of De Vita Contemplativa:

Identity and Character HTR 91.1 (1998): 3-24; and Joan Taylor, Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philos Therapeutae Reconsidered (Oxford: OUP, 2003).

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the canon of the Therapeutae more generally. His description, however, is so vague that it could refer to a bi-, tri- or quadri-partite collection.

Canon in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke

Several passages in the New Testament have been seized on by scholars as indicative of a closed canon. Probably the best known of these is Matt 23:34-36 and its reference to the prophets, wise men and scribes. It has been argued by Roger Beckwith that the phrase, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, implies a closed canon with books arranged in the traditional order from Genesis to Chronicles. The Matthean passage, however, is not intended to define the beginning and end of a list of books. It selectively draws out biblical figures from Abel to Zechariah to exemplify the shedding of innocent blood. Luke 24:44 is evidence of at least a tripartite canon. When the Lukan

Jesus says to his disciples that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled, he probably had in mind three or more divisions of the canon. These descriptors should be understood in the light of the parallel passage in vv. 25-27 of the same chapter. In v. 27, the clause beginning with Moses and all the prophets is most naturally understood as a reference to books belonging to the Torah and Prophets. Moreover, beginning with points to at least another division, but it does not specify what else was included. Instead, Luke says that Jesus interpreted in all the scriptures concerning himself to his disciples.

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Verse 44 mentions the psalms and they are likely to have been included

in the books implied in all the scriptures, but the two are not same. The psalms are mentioned because Luke-Acts uniquely singles out their importance (Luke 20:42 and Acts 1:20). Moreover, they were considered prophetic by nature, because David was regarded as the author of the psalms (Acts 1:16; 4:25) and he was a prophet (Acts 2:30). It is likely that the psalms were considered prophetic in nature, but they

were not included in the second division of the prophets. In fact, there is evidence that Luke-Acts considered all scripture prophetic (Luke 24:25; Acts 3:22). The reference in Luke 24:44 to the law and the prophets, and the exclusion of the psalms from these collections, means that by the end of the first century CE, the first two divisions of the canon had already become traditional and closed.

Paul and the Pharisaic Canon

It is often said that Pauls Bible was the Septuagint, but this is misleading. There is no doubt that Paul knew septuagintal texts and used them alongside other translations, including his own renderings of the Hebrew texts (from written texts and/or memory), as well as pre-existent excerpts of biblical texts. However, a textual classification of his verbatim citations based on content rather than language, as is proper, shows that in 45% of the cases Paul cites a textual tradition that is common to the MT and LXX. He cites distinctively septuagintal texts in only 18% of the cases.

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The view that his Bible was the Septuagint also implies that Paul counted

as authoritative the books of the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. But an examination of all the purported references in the list of the standard Greek New Testamentthe Nestle-Aland appendix of loci citati vel allegatishows that evidence for Pauls use of books outside of the traditional Jewish canon is wanting. The literary relationship between the genuine Pauline passages and purported source passages may be characterized as similarity of thought rather than dependence. One possible exception is the use of Wis 15:1-5 in Rom 2:4. But in this

passage Paul is not arguing against Wis 15 as such, but against Jews whom he believed abused the mercy of God by continuing to sin, a thought paralleled in the Jewish text. He provides a paraphrase without indicating that it was derived from a source. In his writings, Paul cites or alludes to various sources including the slogans of his opponents and a popular saying of Menander (1 Cor 15:33). However, he reserves the use of introductory formulas only for passages derived from books that were eventually included in the traditional canon. The study of citations as indicator of canon is limited by the concerns of

Pauls letters. The apostle to the gentiles was a missionary with many pressing issues before him. He used scriptural texts to bolster his pastoral and theological concerns; he debated with other Jews by using scriptural scrolls that were available at the synagogue. Paul cited or alluded to all the books of the traditional Jewish canon except for the Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, and Ezra- Nehemiah.

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His implied canon, however, is consistent with the emerging Pharisaic

canon that was determined but not yet defined. This is not surprising given that Paul was a Pharisee (Phil 3:2-6). Interestingly, the authoritative status of the Song of Songs, Ruth and Esther were also debated in Rabbinic literature (bMeg 7a).9 Moreover, in Romans Paul describes the biblical texts as holy scriptures ( , 1:2), a description unique in the NT and an exact translation of the Rabbinic expression for holy scriptures (kitvey ha-qodesh).

Emergence of the Rabbinic Canon

By the end of the first century CE Josephus and the author of the apocalypse of 4 Ezra reflect the same closed canon that differed only in the count of the books. 4 Ezra has in view a twenty-four book public canon that the worthy and unworthy read (14:45-48). Josephus claims that his twenty-two book canon was recognized by all Jews (Against Apion 1:38-42). A well-known passage in Mishnah Yadayim, however, shows that disputes continued well into the second century over the scriptural status of two books, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs (3:5). Rabbinic texts also reflect disputes about the books of Ruth and Esther, and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. The theory of the majority canon, then, recognizes both the diversity of

authoritative scriptures and the eventual emergence of the one canon as a consequence of historical events. The biblical books listed in the baraita of Baba Bathra 14a-15b constituted the canon of the Pharisees, because the majority of 9 It is unclear why Ezra-Nehemiah is not used in the letters, but the books emphasis on the
rebuilding of the Temple, the observance of the law, Jewish identity and endogamy would have been highly inconvenient for Paul.

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those who founded Rabbinic Judaism were Pharisees.10 The closing of the canon may be likened to the reaching of a consensus. It does not imply the absence of dissenting voices; it means that most Jews accepted the canon of twenty- two/twenty-four books. The theory that a canon emerged through the identity of the majority

does not imply that diversity coalesced into uniformity. Rather, there were different collections of authoriative scriptures; and then there was the one canon of the majority as sectarianism disappeared. It is unclear precisely when the Jewish canon closed, but a rough estimate of between 150 and 250 CE would not be far off the mark. The closure was not achieved by some conciliar fiat, but unofficially and as a result of a protracted process in which the traditional, authoritative books came to be recognized finally as the canon of twenty- two/twenty four books.

Factors in the Formation of the Canon

There were internal and external factors that contributed to the formation of the Jewish canon. There was no council that pronounced on the status of the books. Rather the authority was conferred on certain books from the bottom-up. The books that eventually became canonical were regarded as divinely inspired. They had long been accepted and used by various Jewish communities in study and worship. 10 Cf. Shaye Cohen, The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish

Sectarianism HUCA 55 (1984): 27-53; and John J. Collins, Before the Canon: Scriptures in Second Temple Judaism in Old Testament. Past, Present, and Future: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker ed. J. L. Mays, D. L. Petersen, and K. H. Richards (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), pp. 225-241.

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Additionally, there were external factors that must be recognized, both

political and cultural. In the Persian period, the status of the Jewish Torah was most likely elevated by imperial authorization. It served the strategic purpose of the Persian government to support the laws of the people of the province of Yehud. In second century BCE Alexandria, the Jewish community not only appealed to the myth of imperial patronage in the translation of the Pentateuch from Hebrew to Greek, it was also reacting to the standardization of the Homeric epics as the Bible of the Greeks. At the end of the first century CE, Josephus articulated the concept of a single, closed canon in polemic discourse against the myriad of Greek histories. And in the second and third centuries, the Rabbinic discussion of outside books was a reaction in part to the rise of the Christian Gospels.

Conclusions
The theory of the majority canon explains the formation of the Jewish canon as a protracted and complex process on which several internal and external factors impacted. It recognises the diversity of collections of authoritative scriptures and the eventual emergence of the one Pharisaic canon that became not only the canon of Rabbinic Judaism but the accepted, traditional canon still in use today.

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