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VII. Note on § (63). The Twenty-two Books of Scripture

This passage is important in connexion with the history of the O.T. canon. The language of Josephus implies that the canon had long since been closed, the test of canonicity being antiquity. Nothing written later than Artaxerxes (i. e. Ahasuerus) has full credentials. The mention of Artaxerxes must refer to the book of Esther, which Josephus thus regards as the latest addition to the collection. The statement differs in some respects from what is believed to be the oldest Palestinian tradition, but there is no reason to doubt that the unnamed 22 books are other than those comprised in the modern Hebrew Bible.

(1) The number 22 as the total of the books of Scripture is here met with for the first time, but reappears as the dominant reckoning in early Eastern Church writers (Melito, Origen, etc.), who connect it with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. As these writers were in touch with Palestinian tradition and Melito expressly states that he derived his information from the East (ap. Eus. H.E. IV. 26), it seems that this reckoning had the support of at least one section of the synagogue. The normal tradition, however, made the total 24, a number which first appears in a work almost contemporary with the Contra Apionem, 2 Esdras (or the Apocalypse of Ezra) xiv. 45 (Oriental text). The smaller number was reached by treating Ruth and Lamentations as supplements respectively to Judges and Jeremiah. The arrangement in 24 books possibly arose in Babylonia.^[434]

It is uncertain which of these two reckonings is the older, but in favour of the priority of the number 24 it may be said that (i) the equation with the number of Hebrew letters is artificial and therefore likely to be late, although as Josephus does not allude to this it may be an after refinement; (ii) it is easier to understand the subsequent attachment of Ruth and Lamentations to prophetical books with which their contents or supposed authorship connected them than how, having once gained admission among the Prophets, they could afterwards be relegated to the lower category of “Writings,” in which they now stand.

A third and later arrangement names 27 books, a number arrived at by dividing the double books, while the parallelism with the Hebrew alphabet is retained by reckoning separately the “final” forms of those letters which possessed them. Jerome in his preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings shows acquaintance with all three systems.

(2) Josephus presents a tripartite arrangement (5 + 13 + 4 books), but not the normal one (5 + 8 + 11: Law, Prophets, Writings). His third group is reduced to 4 by the transference to the “Prophets” of a number of books commonly included in the “Writings.” The normal arrangement, which reflects the stages in the formation of the canon and places, e. g., Daniel in the third group because of the late date at which it gained admission, is clearly the more ancient. Josephus as a Greek historian writing for Greek readers neglects this and follows the example of the translators of the Greek Bible in grouping all the historical and prophetical books together. A close parallel to his third class (“hymns to God and practical precepts for men”) may be found in the description of the sacred books of the Therapeutæ in Egypt in the De Vita Contemplativa ascribed to Philo, “Laws and oracles delivered by prophets and hymns and the other (works) by which knowledge and piety are promoted and perfected” (ed. Conybeare p. 61).

(3) The constituent books doubtless here, as with the Christian writers who name 22 as the total and enumerate the books (cp. Origen in Eus. H.E. VI. 25), coincide with the normal Hebrew canon. Dr. Ryle (Canon of O.T. p. 165 f.) concludes that the 13 books of the Prophets are probably (1) Joshua, (2) Judges + Ruth, (3) Sam., (4) Kings, (5) Chron., (6) Ezra + Nehemiah, (7) Esther, (8) Job, (9) Isaiah, (10) Jeremiah + Lamentations (11) Ezekiel, (12) Minor Prophets, (13) Daniel; while the group of four will comprise (1) Psalms with (2) Song of Songs, constituting the “hymns,” and (3) Proverbs with (4) Ecclesiastes, the “practical precepts.” The view of Grätz that Josephus omitted Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, as not having yet been admitted to the canon, has not met with acceptance.

(4) The canon here laid down has not governed the historian’s practice. He does not scruple to draw upon apocryphal books like 1 Maccabees, nor does he hint that the authorities used in the latter part of the Antiquities, for the period subsequent to “Artaxerxes,” are less trustworthy than the rest; he implies, on the contrary, that the whole work is in accordance with “the holy books” (cp. Ant. I. 17; XX. 261).

The reader may consult in particular the works on the Canon of the O.T. by Ryle (pp. 160-66) and Buhl and the article “Bible Canon” in the Jewish Encylopædia.