Canonicity: Erroneous Views of Determining Canonicity

Some have argued that age or we can say antiquity determines canonicity in the sense that if the book were ancient it would have been revered because of its age and recognized as part of the Hebrew canon.

However, this view is clearly wrong because it does not measure up to the facts.

First of all, many ancient books are not in the canon.

That antiquity does not determine canonicity is apparent from the fact that numerous books, many of which are older than some canonical books, are not in the canon.

For instance, “The Book of the Wars of the Lord” is mentioned in Numbers 21:14, and “the book of Jasher” in Joshua 10:13 and neither of which is part of the Hebrew canon.

Secondly, most, if not all, of the canonical books were received into the canon soon after they were written.

For example, Moses’ writings were placed by the ark while he was yet alive (Deut. 31:24–26).

Daniel who was a younger contemporary of Jeremiah, accepted Jeremiah’s book as canonical (Dan. 9:2).

Ezekiel, another contemporary, made reference to the prophet Daniel (Ezek. 28:3).

In the New Testament, Peter had a collection of Paul’s books and considered them to be Scripture (2 Peter 3:15–16).

Therefore, since many old books were not accepted in the canon, and many young books were received, age could not have been the determining factor of canonicity.

Some scholars argue that the Hebrew language determines canonicity meaning that if a book were written in the language of the Jews, it would have been recognized as being a part of the canon and if not, it would have been rejected.

This view is faulty as well because many books in the Hebrew language are not in the canon.

Most of the books written by the Hebrews were obviously in the Hebrew language, but they were not all accepted in the canon.

For example, Ecclesiasticus and other Apocryphal books were written in the Hebrew language and yet they were not received into the Hebrew canon.

Interestingly some books are not totally written in the Hebrew language are in the canon.

Daniel 2:4b–7:28 are written in the Aramaic language and so is Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:21–26.

Some argue that agreement with the Torah determines canonicity.

In other words, they believe that all Hebrew religious literature that agreed with the teachings of the Torah was accepted into the canon, and all those books that disagreed with it were not.

Now we know that no book which contradicted the Torah would be accepted since the Torah was recognized as being God’s Word and God would not contradict Himself.

The problem with this view is that it does not take into account that there are numerous books which agreed with the Torah but yet were not accepted into the canon.

For example, the prophet Shemaiah kept records that agreed with the Torah (2 Chron. 12:15) but are not in the canon.

Also the Jews were of the conviction that the Talmud and Midrash agreed with the Torah, however they did not consider them to be canonical.

We also must keep in mind that there were no writings prior to the time of the Torah by which its canonicity could be judged.

There is also the view that the religious value of a given book was the determining factor of its reception into the canon.

The problem with this view is that it fails to take into account that there are many books of religious value that were not accepted into either the Old or New Testament collections.

The Apocrypha has much material which is of religious value (cf. Ecclesiasticus).

Even if a book was accepted because of its religious value, it in no way explains how it received its religious value.

Another erroneous view of canonicity is that the religious community determines canonicity since a book is not the Word of God because it is accepted by the people of God but rather, it was accepted by the people of God because it is the Word of God.

In other words, God gives the book its divine authority and not the people of God.

The people are simply recognizing the divine authority which God gives to it.

The problem with all of these erroneous views is that they all fail to distinguish between determination and recognition of canonicity.

Canonicity is determined by God and man merely recognizes a book being inspired by God and so therefore, we can see that a book is canonical because God inspired it.

Canonicity is determined or fixed conclusively by authority, and authority was given to the individual books by God through inspiration.