Haggai: Introduction-Overview and Canonicity of Haggai

The book of Haggai next to Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament.

It deals with the God of Israel using the prophet Haggai to issue four messages to the remnant of Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity.

The purpose of these messages was to encourage this remnant to complete the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem which was destroyed by the third and final Babylonian invasion in 586 B.C.

These messages were delivered over a period of fourth months in 520 B.C. during the second year of the Persian king Darius Hystaspes (522-486 B.C.).

They were delivered to this postexilic community 18 years after their initial return from Babylon.

There are three main characters in the book of Haggai.

First, there is Darius Hystaspes, the king of the Persian empire which was the superpower of the ancient world at the end of the sixth century B.C.

He is also mentioned in Ezra 5 and Zechariah 1.

The second main character is Zerubbabel who was the leader of the Jewish exiles from Babylon and the governor of Judah.

His name means “offspring of Babylon” which strongly suggests he was born in Babylon during the exile.

He is also mentioned in Ezra 2:2 and Zechariah 4:6.

Lastly, there is Joshua who was the high priest and was thus responsible for leading nation in the worship of Yahweh.

He shared the leadership responsibilities with Zerubbabel.

He is also mentioned in Ezra 2:2 and Zechariah 3:1.

The book of Haggai immediately attained canonical status among the Jews.

The term “canon” or “canonicity” in Christianity refers to a collection of many books acknowledged or recognized by the early church as inspired by God.

Both Jews and Christians possess canons of Scripture.

We must remember that the first Christians did not possess a New Testament canon but rather they relied on the gospel that was being proclaimed to them by the apostles and others.

They also relied on the books of the Old Testament canon.

The Jewish canon consists of thirty-nine books while on the other hand the Christian canon consists of sixty-six for Protestants and seventy-three for Catholics.

The Protestant canon has thirty-nine Old Testament books like the Jews and twenty-seven works compose the New Testament.

The Jewish community recognized thirty-nine books as canonical.

This corresponds to the number accepted by the apostolic church and by Protestant churches since the time of the Reformation.

The Roman Catholic church adds fourteen other books which composed the Apocrypha.

They consider these books as having equal authority with the Old Testament books.

The critical consensus of the past two centuries was that the Old Testament came to be canonically recognized in three steps and until recently this has gone relatively unchallenged.

First of all, there is the Torah meaning the first five books of our English Bible which is also called the Pentateuch.

It achieved canonical status in Israel toward the end of the fifth century B.C.

The writings of the Prophets also achieved similar status about 200 B.C. and the Writings only toward the end of the first century A.D. at the Council of Jamnia or Jabne.

However, this is not accepted by everyone in critical scholarship.

There is no longer wide acceptance of the role of the Council of Jamnia in determining the Hebrew canon.

This council did discuss the merits of Ecclesiastes but in no way did they decide what was canonical or not.

The Hebrew Scriptures were recognized as authoritative at their inception and were immediately accepted as such by the Jewish people.

The acceptance of the Pentateuch, for example, is recorded in Deuteronomy 32:46-47, and in Joshua 1:7, 8.

As a matter of course, the church of the first century regarded the Hebrew Scriptures as inspired. Jesus, in Luke 24:44, refers to the Law, the prophets, and the psalms (or the writings) as divinely authoritative and canonical.

Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed and the Jews had gone into the Babylonian captivity (2 Ch. 36:11-21), and during their captivity (586-516 B.C.) the Jews realized why they had disintegrated as a nation.

This led to the resurgence of the study of the Word of God.

At last the Jews became aware of the importance of the written Word as a part of their spiritual heritage-so much so, that we have extra-Biblical evidence with regard to their consciousness of the canon as it then existed.

There were men like Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, who kept reminding the people of the importance of the Scriptures.

There were other outstanding leaders like Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel, who led the advance column out of captivity back to Jerusalem.

They all recognized that they had the canon.

Jesus Christ Himself endorsed the canon (Luke 11:51; Mt. 23:36) which takes us from Genesis 4:10 to 2 Chronicles 24:20-21.

Chronicles was the last book in the Hebrew Canon.

The earliest extant Christian list of Old Testament books was recorded by Melito, bishop of Sardis in A.D. 170.

This list does not mention Lamentations (which was usually understood to be part of the book of Jeremiah), or Nehemiah, which was normally appended to Ezra.

The only other omission was the book of Esther which could have been grouped with Ezra and Nehemiah.

The late fourth century writer Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, quoted another ancient list from the second century which included all the books corresponding to our thirty-nine, except Lamentations, which was probably considered an appendix to Jeremiah.

Origen (A.D. 185-254) also provided a list of the Old Testament books in use corresponding to what we now accept as the Old Testament.

Jesus delimited the extent of the canonical books of the Old Testament when He accused the scribes of being guilty of slaying all the prophets God had sent Israel from Abel to Zacharias (Lk 11:51).

The account of Abel’s death is, of course, in Genesis; that of Zacharias is in 2 Chronicles 24:20–21, which is the last book in the order of the books in the Hebrew Bible (not Malachi as in our English Bibles).

Therefore, it is as if the Lord had said, “Your guilt is recorded all through the Bible—from Genesis to Malachi.”

Notice that He did not include any of the apocryphal books which were in existence at that time and which contained the accounts of other martyrs.

Now, it is important to remember that certain books were canonical even before any tests were put to them.

No church nor church council made any book of the Old or New Testament canonical or authentic.

The book was either authentic or it was not when it was written.

Ancient Israel and the church or its councils recognized and verified certain books as the Word of God, and in time those so recognized were collected together in what we now call the Bible.

Now, Haggai is the first of the postexilic prophets and as we also noted, the tenth of the twelve minor prophets.

It is also place in the correct chronological order in the Old Testament which is unlike many books in the Bible.

The divine origin of Haggai and thus its canonical authority were recognized in Israel from the time of its composition.

Specifically, it was immediately recognized as canonical among the faithful remnant in Israel.

Thus, the canonicity of the book of Haggai has never been questioned.