Originally Posted by spin

Given that the book prior to the first gospel in both C. Sinaiticus and C. Vaticanus is not Malachi and the last book in the Tanak isn't Malachi either, you should be able to force a "cough up the ancient evidence for the claim or shut up."

Originally Posted by spin

Dave, I was just adding a little on Zwaarddijk's topic expressed here:

I've seen the claim repeated in a few books that certain things in the NT are written as though they were intended to follow immediately on 'the last book of the OT' (and the point is made explicitly - the author actually labors under the oppression that the authors of Mark and Matthew opened the last book of the OT and tried making a sequel that would nicely tie in by means of obvious tie-ins to the previous installment in the series).

While I don't know any scholarly source that discusses the issue, the later manuscript evidence (all we have) certainly makes the point that Malachi wouldn't have been the last book in any known collection we have available, so there is no basis for the claim that Mt would have followed Malachi.

Originally Posted by Zwaarddijk

Thanks, but alas, you answered a lot of questions I didn't ask, with a lot of answers I already knew.

The reason I ask is relatively simple: I've seen the claim repeated in a few books that certain things in the NT are written as though they were intended to follow immediately on 'the last book of the OT' (and the point is made explicitly - the author actually labors under the oppression that the authors of Mark and Matthew opened the last book of the OT and tried making a sequel that would nicely tie in by means of obvious tie-ins to the previous installment in the series). The author is apparently unfamiliar with the fact that book order in the OT was not the same - or even more properly wasn't even a thing - in pre-Christian times. What I want is a proper source to refer to in my debunking.

Finding a particular credible source that deals with this is a bit less easy though - it seems most serious authors on this issue assume most people are clever enough to work this out for themselves so they just don't go and say anything about it. What also makes it difficult is knowing whether patristic lists of canonic books are supposed to correlate to the order in which the church fathers considered the books to be, or the lists just had an order due to the fact that unordered lists are tricky to write.

Originally Posted by spin

Given that the book prior to the first gospel in both C. Sinaiticus and C. Vaticanus is not Malachi and the last book in the Tanak isn't Malachi either, you should be able to force a "cough up the ancient evidence for the claim or shut up."

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

The very earliest manuscrripts such as the Chester Beatty OT papyruses are damaged and unclear on any of this so we cannot say anything for sure here. Which then relegates any claims as opinion only.

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

As pointed out here, later works vary, and again, any opinions that ignore these facts are empty opinion.

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

Cocksure opinions are no substitute for facts.

Originally Posted by James The Least

The codex existed in the first century CE. I believe Seneca refers to codices.
It isn't impossible that the Christian Bible at that time existed in codex form, with an ordering similar to Sinaiticus.

Originally Posted by spin

Why are you talking about the Chester Beatty manuscripts, when the subject involved complete collections of canonical Jewish writings in Greek? Papyri are of a technology that doesn't permit the collection of large texts. You need codices.


Facts need to be relevant to the issue.

I'm glad you agree.

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

The relevant facts are that early Christian papyruses relevant to the issue tell us nothing about the issue at hand.

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

Coupled with the fact that no later codexes seem to agree as to what the last book of the OT was, means we have no evidence that can settle the issue. This seems rather obvious, to me. So we have about 6 centuries here that lack evidence to support any claims of what the original order was, or whether if we knew that if it was meaningful in any way. And we will probably never know.

Seems rather reasonable and a strong answer for the OP. There is no evidence to support any claims based on what the last book of the OT was. That simply cannot be established with current known papyruses or later codexes. And that gives the OP the answer he wants. What was the original order, we can't know based on what remains we have of early manuscripts.

CheerfuL Charlie

CheerfuL Charlie

Originally Posted by spin

Papyri were scrolls and by their nature not capable of holding a collection of works. You need the development of the large codex, a couple of centuries after the first codices were made, before you could have a collection of the entire Hebrew bible and deutero-canonical works.