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Old 07-28-2013, 06:12 AM   #1
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Default Order of Books in old canons

Is there any good book or other source that clarifies how the order of the biblical books has developed over time and what various branches of different orders have existed in different places and times?

I realize there may very well be times and places where the order was not even considered - if you have each book occupying a scroll of its own, you may not consider there to be much of a reason to have an actual order to them.
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Old 07-28-2013, 12:30 PM   #2
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Is there any good book or other source that clarifies how the order of the biblical books has developed over time and what various branches of different orders have existed in different places and times?

I realize there may very well be times and places where the order was not even considered - if you have each book occupying a scroll of its own, you may not consider there to be much of a reason to have an actual order to them.
Good luck on that. Here are some things to keep in mind. Jews kept their sacred scripture on scrolls (rolls). Christians preferred the codex (book form). The Tanakh (Hebrew scriptures) as we have it today was finalized in the 4th century CE. The Tanakh preserves the Hebrew form of the books determined to be sacred at that time, and these Hebrew books have been the norm for Judaism ever since.

Prior to then, Alexandrian Jews had translated the books of the law into Greek in the 3rd century BCE. In the interim between the 3rd century BCE and the 4th century CE, Greek translations of the other books held sacred to the Jews were also made. Some of these translations were made from Hebrew books hat were not preserved in the Tanakh (e.g., Ben Sira), and others were composed in Greek (Bell, Susannah, etc). Except for the five books of the Law, I don't think they were organized in any special way, as they were transmitted individually.

Starting around the 3rd or 4th century CE, Christians started publishing these Greek translations used by Jews in codex format. They called it the "Old Testament" and it was followed by the books of the Christian "New Testament." The books of the Christian "New Testament" usually followed the order we find in our modern bibles. The "Old Testament" books were ordered so that the book of the prophet Malachi (with a messianic prophesy) immediately preceded Matthew.

The Christian books had already been circulating in smaller codices since the 2nd century CE. The books contained in these smaller codices were usually grouped as follows - the 4 gospels, the Pauline Letters, the book of Acts with the General Epistles, and Revelation all by itself.

Modern editions of these books sometimes try to preserve the order usually found in manuscripts, or create their own orders. I gotta go, but below are the order of books in various modern bibles editions.

RSV is the Revised Standard Version. LXA is the edition of the Septuagint published by Alfred Rahlfs. BGT is a combination of LXA plus the Nestle-Aland Greek NT. VUL is the Latin Vulgate. TNK is the Tanakh as Published by the Jewish Publication society.

DCH

RSV LXA BGT VUL TNK
Genesis Genesis Genesis Genesis Genesis
Exodus Exodus Exodus Exodus Exodus
Leviticus Leviticus Leviticus Leviticus Leviticus
Numbers Numbers Numbers Numbers Numbers
Deuteronomy Deuteronomy Deuteronomy Deuteronomy Deuteronomy
Joshua Joshua Joshua Joshua Joshua
Judges Judges Judges Judges Judges
Ruth Ruth Ruth Ruth 1 Samuel
1 Samuel 1 Samuel 1 Samuel 1 Samuel 2 Samuel
2 Samuel 2 Samuel 2 Samuel 2 Samuel 1 Kings
1 Kings 1 Kings 1 Kings 1 Kings 2 Kings
2 Kings 2 Kings 2 Kings 2 Kings Isaiah
1 Chronicles 1 Chronicles 1 Chronicles 1 Chronicles Jeremiah
2 Chronicles 2 Chronicles 2 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Ezekiel
Ezra Ezra 1 Esdras 1 Esdras Hosea
Nehemiah Nehemiah Ezra Ezra Joel
Esther Esther Nehemiah Nehemiah Amos
Job Job Esther Esther Obadiah
Psalm Psalm Judith Judith Jonah
Proverbs Proverbs Tobit Tobit Micah
Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes 1 Maccabees 1 Maccabees Nahum
Song of Solomon Song of Solomon 2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees Habakkuk
Isaiah Isaiah 3 Maccabees Psalm Zephaniah
Jeremiah Jeremiah 4 Maccabees Psalm 151 Haggai
Lamentations Lamentations Psalm Proverbs Zechariah
Ezekiel Ezekiel Odes Ecclesiastes Malachi
Daniel Daniel Proverbs Song of Solomon Psalm
Hosea Hosea Ecclesiastes Job Proverbs
Joel Joel Song of Solomon Wisdom Job
Amos Amos Job Sirach Song of Solomon
Obadiah Obadiah Wisdom Hosea Ruth
Jonah Jonah Sirach Prolog Amos Lamentations
Micah Micah Sirach Micah Ecclesiastes
Nahum Nahum Psalms of Solomon Joel Esther
Habakkuk Habakkuk Hosea Obadiah Daniel
Zephaniah Zephaniah Amos Jonah Ezra
Haggai Haggai Micah Nahum Nehemiah
Zechariah Zechariah Joel Habakkuk 1 Chronicles
Malachi Malachi Obadiah Zephaniah 2 Chronicles
RSV LXA BGT VUL TNK
Matthew Tobit Jonah Haggai  
Mark Judith Nahum Zechariah  
Luke Wisdom Habakkuk Malachi  
John Sirach Prolog Zephaniah Isaiah  
Acts Sirach Haggai Jeremiah  
Romans Baruch Zechariah Baruch  
1 Corinthians Epistle of Jeremiah Malachi Lamentations  
2 Corinthians Prayer of Azariah Isaiah Ezekiel  
Galatians Susanna Jeremiah Daniel  
Ephesians Bel Baruch 4 Esdras  
Philippians 1 Maccabees Lamentations Prayer of Manasseh  
Colossians 2 Maccabees Epistle of Jeremiah Matthew  
1 Thessalonians 1 Esdras Ezekiel Mark  
2 Thessalonians 3 Maccabees Susanna Luke  
1 Timothy 4 Maccabees Daniel John  
2 Timothy Prayer of Manasseh Bel Acts  
Titus   Matthew Romans  
Philemon   Mark 1 Corinthians  
Hebrews   Luke 2 Corinthians  
James   John Galatians  
1 Peter   Acts Ephesians  
2 Peter   Romans Philippians  
1 John   1 Corinthians Colossians  
2 John   2 Corinthians 1 Thessalonians  
3 John   Galatians 2 Thessalonians  
Jude   Ephesians 1 Timothy  
Revelation   Philippians 2 Timothy  
Tobit   Colossians Titus  
Judith   1 Thessalonians Philemon  
Wisdom   2 Thessalonians Hebrews  
Sirach   1 Timothy Laodiceans  
Baruch   2 Timothy James  
Epistle of Jeremiah   Titus 1 Peter  
Prayer of Azariah   Philemon 2 Peter  
Susanna   Hebrews 1 John  
Bel   James 2 John  
1 Maccabees   1 Peter 3 John  
2 Maccabees   2 Peter Jude  
1 Esdras   1 John Revelation  
Prayer of Manasseh   2 John    
Psalm 151   3 John    
3 Maccabees   Jude    
4 Esdras   Revelation    
4 Maccabees        
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Old 07-29-2013, 01:29 AM   #3
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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.
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Old 07-29-2013, 07:36 AM   #4
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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.
Erm, I think there must be several confusions in here.

First, do we need to suppose that desiring to "follow on" to a text contained in a canonical list would necessarily involve collecting all those texts in a single volume? I don't see it.

In the first century AD all these books would be on a separate volume (roll / wax-tablets / sheet of parchment or papyrus / primitive codex). But this does not mean that the concept of a collection did not exist. And some idea of who the last prophets were ... surely this must have existed? (I don't really spend time with the OT, so others may know better). If so, it requires no more than the idea?

The technology to produce a codex large enough to contain the whole OT did not exist prior to the 4th century. Whether partial collections existed before then in the papyrus codices of the 2nd and 3rd centuries I don't know; but it would hardly matter.

I think you're engaged in exploring a mare's nest here. What is in your mind - and probably your correspondents - is the idea of a fixed list as in a table of contents, unchanged for centuries. But in antiquity we are well before any such bibliographic standardisations, because the technologies did not exist. And I really do not see how any valid theological argument -- and what on earth are you arguing about here? for it can't possibly show that either Christianity is true or false, or that living by societal values is true or false, whatever you determine on this issue -- can be based on this kind of stuff either way.

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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.
I would doubt that any antique patristic list treats the order of the NT books as something ordained by God or a council. I think perhaps you have, willing or not, a picture of a modern printed edition in your mind, and that anachronism is distorting everything?

All the best,

Roger Pearse
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Old 07-29-2013, 08:58 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Zwaarddijk View Post
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.
Erm, I think there must be several confusions in here.

First, do we need to suppose that desiring to "follow on" to a text contained in a canonical list would necessarily involve collecting all those texts in a single volume? I don't see it.
The main thing I want to reach is the conclusion that the author whose work I am criticizing is too ignorant about relevant issues, and assumes too many things to have remained exactly the same.

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Originally Posted by Roger Pearse View Post
In the first century AD all these books would be on a separate volume (roll / wax-tablets / sheet of parchment or papyrus / primitive codex). But this does not mean that the concept of a collection did not exist. And some idea of who the last prophets were ... surely this must have existed? (I don't really spend time with the OT, so others may know better). If so, it requires no more than the idea?
As indeed I said, their being on separate rolls does not necessarily imply that the idea of a collection/canon was missing - HOWEVER, the existence of a canon does not necessarily imply the existence of an order within the canon. Maybe they had, maybe not? So where would I find whether they had such orders? I, of course, am convinced they didn't really have such an order, but I want something that either confirms this hunch or something that refutes it.

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Originally Posted by Roger Pearse View Post
The technology to produce a codex large enough to contain the whole OT did not exist prior to the 4th century. Whether partial collections existed before then in the papyrus codices of the 2nd and 3rd centuries I don't know; but it would hardly matter.
I know.

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Originally Posted by Roger Pearse View Post
I think you're engaged in exploring a mare's nest here. What is in your mind - and probably your correspondents - is the idea of a fixed list as in a table of contents, unchanged for centuries.
That is what clearly is in the mind of the author whose work I am criticizing. I want to have a source that states in clear language that such a table of contents is an anachronistic idea in the context of 1st century Judaism.

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Originally Posted by Roger Pearse View Post
But in antiquity we are well before any such bibliographic standardisations, because the technologies did not exist. And I really do not see how any valid theological argument -- and what on earth are you arguing about here?
The thing I want to demonstrate, is that the author whose work I am criticizing is not sufficiently knowledgeable about the topic in general.
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Quote:
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.
I would doubt that any antique patristic list treats the order of the NT books as something ordained by God or a council. I think perhaps you have, willing or not, a picture of a modern printed edition in your mind, and that anachronism is distorting everything?

All the best,

Roger Pearse
Why the hell do you assume I assume this? What I am striving to do is to explicitly, and with a source that isn't myself, establish that exactly the notion you think I labor under in fact is wrong.

But, as I am no authority on the issue, referring to my own knowledge about the issue does not seem sufficient, and I would prefer to be able to refer to someone else's scholarly work on the topic.

I am also more interested in the Old Testament canon.

I think no one's quite getting that I just want to get the reasonable idea here *confirmed*, not question it or anything. Pretty much everything everyone's said here just agrees with my stances, and disagrees with the author I am criticizing. Yet everyone seems to be talking down to me.
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Old 07-29-2013, 09:11 AM   #6
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Just a parenthesis...

When the various Greek translations were put together in codices, Vaticanus seems to have ended with Daniel while Sinaiticus ended with Job.
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Old 07-29-2013, 10:00 AM   #7
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Would this question have anything to do with this controversy?

Quote:
Mat 23:29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
Mat 23:30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Mat 23:31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Mat 23:32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Mat 23:34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Mat 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Mat 23:36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
Here the scribes and Pharisees are boldly proclaiming that had they lived in the times of their forefathers, they would not have stoned the prophets of God, that they would have known better. But Jesus says they have persecuted men of God just as their fathers had, and that they would continue to do so (v. 34). Then note what is said in the next verse "... from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias"... . What could Jesus be referring to? Well, Abel was murdered in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. And Zacharias? What book is his murder related in? Well let's look at our third text, a parallel passage, first:
Luke 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
Note that Jesus accuses the scribes and Pharisees of taking away the key of knowledge. What key is that? And what is God requiring of that generation? The answer is in the phrase "From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias ...". Well, again, Abel was slain in the first book of the Bible (Gen 4:8). Now those Protestants who anticipate the answer might begin looking for the murder of Zacharias in the book of Malachi. Why? Because Jesus is again referring to the full breadth of the scriptures (the key of knowledge, the oracles of God), from the first book of the Old Testament, to the last book of the Old Testament. A Protestant therefore, might well open their Bible to search in the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, for the martyrdom of Zacharias. However, Malachi is not the last book of the Hebrew TaNaKh! What? That is correct. The Hebrew Bible, though identical in content to the Protestant Old Testament, is not in the same order as Protestant or Catholic Bibles. In the Hebrew Bible the last book is the book of Chronicles. That is where we find the murder of Zechariah between the altar and the temple. . .
(more at that link on the differing order in the LXX and the "Old Testament" used by different flavors of Christians.)
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Old 07-29-2013, 12:06 PM   #8
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Toto, nope, my aim is at D.M. Murdock, viz. these two samples from Who Was Jesus - Fingerprints of the Christ:

"Moreover, even though it also appears to have been built upon Matthew in order to answer questions raised by that gospel, the beginning of Mark seems to have been written to follow directly the last Old Testament book of Malachi, since instead of the birth narrative, Mark begins his gospel with an account of John the Baptist, the "voice crying in the wilderness" and "the messenger" as prophesied "in the prophets," e.g., Malachi. (c.f. p. 69, p. 115)"


"In the Old Testament (2 Kings 2:11), the esteemed Jewish prophet Elijah ended his earthly career by being taken up to heaven alive, such that "the Jews expected he would return just before the advent of the Messiah, whom he would prepare the minds of the Israelites to receive. In the last book before the New Testament, the prophet Malachi ("My messenger") says:
"Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse." (Mai 4:4-5)

Thus, in the biblical book, cahpter and verses directly preceding the gospel of Matthew it is said that Elijah would appear "before the great and terrible day of the Lord," ..."

It is clear from these two samples - there's about three more in Christ in Egypt, one in The Christ Conspiracy and three in Suns of God - that Murdock is under the impression that the order you find in modern tables of contents for modern single-volume bibles has been meaningful and identical ever since 2nd temple judaism - she makes the argument that certain bits of the gospels were meant to directly follow "the last book of the OT", which indicates she thinks that the author really had the modern order in front of him and just worked in as many tie-ins to the previous book as possible. My argument is that if she is going to use that argument, she needs to convincingly show that Malachi actually was considered the last book in order of the OT (not just, say, last book as far as chronology goes), which she has not - she has just gone on a naive assumption.

It seems clear other orders were in use in early Christianity - as shown at the link you provided - http://www.biblelight.net/hebrew-canon.htm .*




I know this is a minor detail, but the number of times she keeps calling things 'illogical' even when they're not per se illogical, I feel mandates thoroughness in debunking.
In general, WWJ-FoC is much better than The Christ Conspiracy or The Suns of God as far as facts go, but sometimes the reasoning does not add up - even when she makes claims that are probably correct. However, unlike the two other books I mentioned, WWJ-FoC makes significantly weaker claims as well, most claims being stuff most atheists would agree with except possibly the underlying logic on a few counts.
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Old 07-29-2013, 04:07 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by Zwaarddijk View Post
Is there any good book or other source that clarifies how the order of the biblical books has developed over time and what various branches of different orders have existed in different places and times?

I realize there may very well be times and places where the order was not even considered - if you have each book occupying a scroll of its own, you may not consider there to be much of a reason to have an actual order to them.
Maybe you can start with the earliest surviving extant Greek bible codices (all from the 4th/5th century) such as Vaticanus, Sinaticus, Alexandrinus, Bezae. Many of these things are now online.





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Old 07-30-2013, 07:25 AM   #10
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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."
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