Peter Kirby

Emil Schürer comments: "Περι βιου θεωρητικου η ικετωον αρετων. De vita contemplativa (Mangey, ii. 471-486).—Eusebius twice cites the title in the following form (H. E. ii. 17. 3 and ii. 18. 7): περι βιου θεωρητικου η ικετων. The αρετων added at the end must therefore be expunged. Eusebius, H. E. ii. 17, gives full information concerning the contents, comp. also ii. 16. 2. This composition has, since the time of Eusebius, enjoyed special approbation in the Christian Church, Christian monks being almost universally recognised in the 'Therapeutae' here described and glorified. The likeness is indeed surprising; but for that very reason the suspicion is also well founded, that the author's design was under the mask of Philo to recommend Christian monachism. But apart from this there are other suspicious elements, by reason of which even such critics do not regard the Therapeutae as representing a Christian, but as a Jewish ideal of life, have denied thea uthorship of Philo. Upon the ground of the identification of the Therapeutae with Christian monks, Lucius, after the precedent of Grätz and Jost, has declared this composition spurious. It is by his thorough and methodical investigation that the spuriousness of its authorship has been definitely decided." (The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, pp. 357-358)

best,
Peter Kirby

Evangelion

Can do.

Lists of authoritative literature.

The preservation of authoritative literature.

Yes. The Biblical record makes this clear - particularly in the record of Josiah's reign.

What mistakes?

It wasn't a case of being "open to Christian editions at all." As far as the Jews were concerned, the canon was definitely closed. The Christians simply came along and wrote their own translations. That was their decision, utterly independent of the Jews. But even then, it was not an official redefinition of the canon.

Josephus confirms that the canon was closed by his time. This would not be greatly significant were it not for the fact that Josephus defines the canon by the trifold grouping of pre-Christian origin.

Again:

• Jesus ben Sira, who translated his grandfather's book, Ecclesiasticus, from Hebrew into Greek, added a prologue of his own in which he makes mention of three parts of the Jewish canon three times.
  
  "This passage can hardly have been written later than about 130 BCE". [Beckwith, p.110.]
  
  He not only states that there is a threefold canon - that is closed and distinguished from all other writings - but he goes as far as to imply that this was also the case in his grandfather's time, this would give a date as early as the third century BCE for the canon. The words of Jesus also suggest a tripartite canon when he spoke in Luke 24:44 of words written in the Law, Prophets and the Psalms.

This is evidence that the Jewish canon had already been defined and closed before the Christian era.

Irrelevant. There's a few other Biblical heroes he doesn't matter, so who's counting? The significance of Sirach is (a) that he refers to individuals who lived before his time (such as Elijah and Ezekiel), confirming that the record of their deeds was already accepted as authoritative by the Jews, and (b) that he alludes to the trifold grouping of the Jewish canon.

In any case, we have an alternative attestation for the book of Daniel from around the same time as Sirach:

• I Maccabees 2:59-60.
  Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, by believing were saved out of the flame.
  Daniel for his innocency was delivered from the mouth of lions.

This is doubly helpful, since it includes a reference to the "firey furnace" story of Daniel 3 and a reference to the "lions den" story of Daniel 6. Remember, Sirach does not claim to be listing a canon. But he does provide a useful reference point for the dating of canonical Jewish literature.

*snip*

I don't see the relevance of geography in relation to the reliability of Sirach.

Celsus

Evangelion,

I am amused with your post. First you agree to discuss the issues raised about the idea of canons, and then you respond with simplistic assertions, seemingly unaware that your assertions are exactly the sort of mistakes pointed out in the Prolegomena to the article. Since you have no real interest in this issue (otherwise you might have read the article), except the rather tedious apologetic one, I don't see much further point in continuing this discussion.

Joel

Evangelion

I was waiting for you to raise them.

We shall see.

Mistake #1:

• The persistence of the concept and evaluation of "canon" according to the Christian example of a closed and authoritative list.

Why is it wrong to defend the concept of a canon? A canon is simply a list of authoritative literature. Why is it a "mistake" to believe that the Jews attempted to collate a list of authoritative literature, when this is so obviously what they did? Their preservation of the Law of Moses is a case in point; these books were regarded as authoritative, and for this reason they were continually copied.

Your author observes:

• The role of canons within the system of rabbinic Judaism, as well as in other ancient and modern societies has not been fully evaluated.

But so the hell what? Are we not permitted to advance any opinions on the subject because "the role of canons within the system of rabbinic Judaism... has not been fully evaluated"? That seems to be a rather facile objection. How is it a "mistake" to advance and defend the concept of a canon?

Mistake #2:

• The inherited view of pre-rabbinic Judaism as having been, throughout its development, a unitary phenomenon, with a single line of evolution, and thus, implicitly, with a single canonizing process, leading to a single canon.

But I have never suggested any such thing. I have not claimed that pre-rabbinic Judaism was "a unitary phenomenon with a single line of evolution." This misapprehension is precluded by the record of history. Judaism became increasingly fragmented during the various captivities, with different branches of Jewish thought emerging left, right and centre.

Nor have I claimed that there was "a single canoninsing process, leading to a single canon." The canonisation process was gradual; it occurred over a long period of time and was completed in various stages, at various times.

Yes, there was a conscious decision to preserve authoritative literature (as indeed, there has been in most other human civilsations.) The members of each different era settled on the books they deemed to be authoritative, and collected them together in a single group. That group was subsequently inherited by the next generation(s), who added their own authoritative books to the list as they saw fit.

The process ended when the Jews decided that there were no longer prophets among them. Since divine inspiration was considered to be the benchmark of Scripture, the Jews would naturally exclude any uninspired work from their collection of authoritative writings.

• This is often compounded by the teleological fallacy: that within the process of formation of a canon lie the seeds of the final canon itself

*snip*

I make no such assumption, nor have I claimed any such thing in this thread.

Mistake #3:

• The assumption the scriptural canon provides clear and reliable evidence of its own history.

It is not an assumption. It is an interpretation of the textual evidence. Whether right or wrong, it is definitely not an assumption.

Even your author admits that...

• We can find traces of the canonical process within the canonized texts of scripture.

I agree, of course, that evidence for the history of the canon is not entirely clear, but I believe there is sufficient information to constitute reliable evidence.

• One obvious example of this is to divide the history of canonization into the rabbinic-Masoretic divisions of "torah", "prophets" and "writings", without considering that different groupings may have been in force at earlier stages;

I am quite happy to consider that different groupings may have been in force at earlier stages, and just as ready to believe it (if any evidence can be advanced in its favour.) Do you have such evidence? If not, this is merely pointless speculation. It neither proves nor disproves anything.

• more generally there persists a tendency to accept canonical stories such as Ezra as being suitable evidence for the canonization of torah.

Until I am given a valid reason for discounting the story of Ezra (and any other canonical story that your author might have in mind) I'll stay with it, thanks. But even if I dropped it, the impact on my argument would be negligible. I don't actually need it.

Mistake #4:

• Within biblical scholarship, it is rarely asked whether or not "canon" is a good thing; where the matter does get an airing, the answer is a ringing affirmation. Yet an ongoing controversy about whether or not canons do or should exist is raging in the field of English literature.

Relevance?

• Some critics are saying that the notion of "canon" is no more than an attempt by educational (we could read "ecclesiastical") fascists to administer control of one's culture ("religion") and one's society, to preserve the values of a powerful few against the interests of the less powerful many. Others counter that excellence cannot be relativized and must be recognized, and that canons do and should exist because they testify to the self-authorizing nature of excellence.

Relevance?

• But values do not lie in texts. Texts can only refract the values of writers and readers. Canons do not impose themselves.

Agreed. But... relevance?

Evangelion

Well, that was easy enough. I haven't actually committed most of these alleged "mistakes" - and as for the rest, your author has simply failed to prove that they are mistakes in the first place. So for the most part, Davies' spiel consists of little more than straw men and unproved assertions.

Suit yourself.

Celsus

Hi Evangelion,

Ok, I withdraw my remarks about you lacking an interest. However, I disagree with your conclusion that "haven't actually committed most of these alleged 'mistakes'." Let's begin.
Firstly, I should point out that this would not significantly influence my argument since Josephus is writing more or less near the final stages of the Hebrew canon (some 20 years before Jamnia). However, there are serious problems with your apologetic. For the benefit of onlookers, what Josephus does say in Contra Apion 1.8 is this:

• For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life.
  
  The footnote states:
  (8) Which were these twenty-two sacred books of the. Old Testament, see the Supplement to the Essay of the Old Testament, p. 25-29, viz. those we call canonical, all excepting the Canticles; but still with this further exception, that the book of apocryphal Esdras be taken into that number instead of our canonical Ezra, which seems to be no more than a later epitome of the other; which two books of Canticles and Ezra it no way appears that our Josephus ever saw.

Clearly, what books are included in Josephus' canon are a matter of conjecture (albeit with some high degrees of plausibility), since it is possible that 1/3 Esdras or Ezra (and it is a significant difference regardless of the origins of 1/3 Esdras) is the book refered to here. Furthermore, presumably either one of Canticles or Qoheleth make up the last of Josephus' 4 books consisting of the "hymns to God"/writings--the others being most probably Psalms, Proverbs and Job. The answer is at best conjecture. In other words, when you argue that for Josephus, the canon is "definitely closed" and he has only 22 books as opposed to 24, something is wrong with your idea of closed. Bringing back Davies into the picture, he writes:

• Any history of canonizing, then, that we construct, though supposedly dealing with the backward-looking face, is being composed under the forward-looking gaze of a final, definitive and authoritative canon, which has helped to shape not just Christian communities, and not just the discourse of biblical scholarship (note the term carefully!) but also Western culture.

As we have seen with your example of Josephus, you are putting the cart before the horse (did you not realise his canon consisted of only 22 books?). Josephus' canon differed from Jamnia, and because of your apologetic need to have canonicity established as early as possible, you claim it was closed when in fact, it was still quite open.

Moving on to your definitions of canons:
The rather obvious and mundane question then extends as: authoritative according to whom? As we have seen in the Josephus example above, the authority of Josephus is insufficient.
Again, it is insufficient to list it merely as preservation since you yourself quoted Josephus earlier as deeming certain writings of greater quality than others. And of course, as we have seen, his authority is unreliable, since it does not tell us nearly enough about the canon, and since he differs from the final canon as to raise unanswerable questions.
This is exactly what Davies said was a conceptual problem in #3. Of course, you countered it by saying that it was not an assumption but interpretation, but your simple one-liner initially can lead to no other conclusion that it was an assumption--hence my charge (I will deal with your answer to #3 in greater detail later --Edit: scratch that, I'll let you respond first).

<snip the rest of your claims of Josephus' citing the canon as closed>

Joel

Evangelion

The point is, however, that Josephus clearly alludes to this canon as an old and well-established body of authoritative literature.

Thus:

• From the days of Artaxerxes to our own times every event has indeed been recorded; but these recent records have not been deemed worthy of equal credit with those which preceded them, on account of the failure of the exact succession of prophets.
  
  There is practical proof of the spirit in which we treat our Scriptures; although so great an interval of time has now passed, not a soul has ventured to add or to remove or to alter a syllable; and it is the instinct of every Jew, from the day of his birth, to consider these Scriptures as the teaching of God, and to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to lay down his life in their behalf.

As far as Josephus is concerned: (a) the canon was closed after the time of Artaxerxes, (b) the canon was subsequently accepted as authoritative; (c) it has remained unaltered since then, and (d) a great deal of time has passed since the canon has closed.

Since Josephus wrote in AD 90, he is perfectly correct in saying that a great deal of time has passed - and he confirms that the canon has remained unchanged during that period. The canon is, according to Josephus, definitively closed.

We shall see.

*snip*

A single, unsubstantiated opinion from a 17th Century theologian does not a compelling argument make. You require much more than this.

"At best conjecture"? Hardly.

According to the Jewish Encyclopaedia:

• Josephus (c. 38-95) enumerates 22 books, which he divides as follows:
  
  5 books of Moses;
  13 histories, containing the history of Israel from Moses' death down to Artaxerxes I., written by the Prophets; and
  4 remaining books consisting of hymns and admonitions.
  
  "It is true our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time: and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one hath been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them" ("Contra Ap." i. 8).
  
  It is evident that Josephus, instead of counting Ruth and Lamentations as separate books, combined them with Judges and Jeremiah, respectively. As historical books he considered all that narrated anything historical, and thus included Job. He considered Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes non-historical.
  
  No other arrangement would have been possible for Josephus; for it is known from Talmudic and Midrashic literature that in his time, when the Tannaites flourished most, all the now familiar books were considered canonical. For various interpretations of Josephus' narrative, see Strack, l.c. p. 752.

The only difference between the 24-book canon and the 22-books canon therefore, is the arrangement of the canonical material (not the material itself.)

You have not even begun to prove this. Your "22 books as opposed to 24" objection is quite insubstantial. Not only that, but every time you refer to Josephus you somehow manage to overlook this bit...

• ...although so great an interval of time has now passed, not a soul has ventured to add or to remove or to alter a syllable; and it is the instinct of every Jew, from the day of his birth, to consider these Scriptures as the teaching of God, and to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to lay down his life in their behalf.

Now, what exactly do you make of this, Celsus? What is Josephus trying to tell us here? Is he saying "Sure, the canon looks great - but it's still open, so of course we're chucking in a new book every month"?

Or is he saying something rather different?

Notwithstanding this, it is still not impossible to reconstruct the history of the canon.

How so?

Of course I did. I've even written an article on the subject (which may be read by anyone who visits my own forum) in which I quote this very section of Versus Apion. Your "24 books vs. 22 books" objection just doesn't carry any weight.

In its arrangement? Perhaps. In its content? No. Jamnia merely reaffirmed the parameters of the traditional canon - the very canon which Josephus himself had already recognised as ancient. (The reaffirmation itself was most likely prompted by the rise of Christianity.)

You have not even begun to prove that it was still open. What do you do with Josephus' observation that the canon has remained untouched "for so great a time"? What do you do with his observation that this is due to the fact that the criteria for canonisation have not been met by any subsequent works?

Obviously they are authoritative according to the compilers and anyone else who accepts them. What you should be asking is "How was that authority traditionally defined? On what basis was a book considered canonical?"

Well, Josephus provides with the parameters of his day - and guess what? The Council of Jamnia agreed.

We have seen no such thing.

Oh, I agree that a canon is much more than that. You see, I am actually using the term "authoritative" to denote the very superiority to which you refer. Josephus clearly believed that the books of his canon should enjoy precedence over other Jewish writings by virtue of their inspiration. He clearly states that they have been deemed authoritative on this very basis. That is one of his canonical criteria.

In fact, his testimony is quite sufficient (as the Jewish Encyclopaedia has shown.)

*snip*

In fact, since you have not even defined what you believe to be Josephus' canon (much less that of Jamnia) this assertion remains unsupported.

Evangelion

I'd love to know how else these words might be interpreted:

• From the days of Artaxerxes to our own times every event has indeed been recorded; but these recent records have not been deemed worthy of equal credit with those which preceded them, on account of the failure of the exact succession of prophets.
  
  There is practical proof of the spirit in which we treat our Scriptures; although so great an interval of time has now passed, not a soul has ventured to add or to remove or to alter a syllable; and it is the instinct of every Jew, from the day of his birth, to consider these Scriptures as the teaching of God, and to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to lay down his life in their behalf.

What's that, then? A shopping list?

"Three pounds of butter, a quart of milk, a dozen eggs, a sack of potatoes and 22 authoritative books from the Jewish religious tradition. Signed, Josephus."

Evangelion

With respect, Schürer is astonishingly credulous (as are all those who believe that Philo's reference was to "Christian monks.") We do not, in fact, have a quote from DVC which makes any such claim. Philo doesn't even mention the Christians. He never even knew them.

The absurd claim that the Therapeutae were actually Christians does not come from Philo, but from Eusebius himself - and so we see that Schürer's principle error is his uncritical acceptance of Eusebius's testimony. He has taken a statement from Eusebius and (astonishingly) attributed it to Philo. This is very poor scholarship.

How do we evaluate Eusebius' identification of the Therapeutae as Christians? Was it accidental, or deliberate; mistaken or contrived? Should we give Eusebius the benefit of the doubt, or convict him as a pious fraud?

Professor Constantine Scouteris (School of Theology at the University of Athens) gives Eusebius the benefit of the doubt, arguing that his identification of the Therapeutae with Christians was an honest mistake:

• It should be pointed out from the very outset that Philonian monachism has been seen as the forerunner of and the model for the Christian ascetic life. It has even been considered as the first picture of Christian monasticism.
  
  Such an identification can already be found in Eusebius of Caesarea. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, referring first to apostolic foundations of the Church of Alexandria by St. Mark, points out that Philo's Therapeutae were the first Christian monks.
  
  He sees in their renunciation of property, in their chastity of life, in their severe fasting, in their solitary lives, in their devotion to scriptural reading and in other aspects of their ascetic life, the Christian monks.
  
  Eusebius was so certain that Philo was describing the life of the first Christian monks that he argues that Philo himself, not only knew the life of the first Christian ascetics, but also had himself adopted it.
  
  The Therapeutae of Philo and the Monks as Therapeutae (2002.)

Phillip Schaff (History of the Christian Church) is equally indulgent:

• Eusebius (II. 17) mistook the Therapeutae for Christian ascetics, and later historians for Christian monks. It was supposed that Philo was converted by the Apostle Peter. This error was not dispelled till after the Reformation.

But Marian Hillar is far more skeptical - and IMHO, right on the money:

• The church preserved the Philonic writings because Eusebius of Caesarea labeled the monastic ascetic group of Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, described in Philo's The Contemplative Life, as Christians, which is highly unlikely. Eusebius also promotes the legend that Philo met Peter in Rome. Jerome (345-420 CE) even lists him as a church Father.
  
  The Logos and Its Function in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria: Greek Interpretation of the Hebrew Myth and Foundations of Christianity (2000.)

Eusebius' endorsement of DVC (combined with his hopelessly anachronistic claims about Philo and Peter in Rome) was largely responsible for the acceptance of the Alexandrian's work. Jerome's propaganda had a similar effect.

But neither man had any evidence to support his claims. (The simple reason for this, of course, is that they simply weren't true! They were, in fact, nothing more than Christian revisionist pseudo-history.) I therefore convict both Eusebius and Jerome as pious frauds, discounting their nonsensical "interpretations" of the Therapeutae.

Epiphanius (a later church father) is also deserving of comment. He perpetuates the myth of Eusebius in his own mention of the Therapeutae.

According to Shirley Jackson's thesis (available here):

• Epiphanius adopts the Eusebian tradition that Christianity was planted in Egypt by Mark, and that Philo's Therapeutes were the primitive Christians. But the title of Philo's treatise was, according to Epiphanius, Concerning Jessees peri Iessaiwn.
  
  In the opening paragraph of De vita contemplativa Philo speaks of the Therapeutes in a way to indicate that he regarded them as a type of Essees (Essenes). They were the Essees of the contemplative life in contrast with the Essees of the practical life. So it would not have been wholly incongruous to refer to his tractate as Concerning Essees peri Essaiwn.
  
  [...]
  
  Why are we here introduced to the Therapeutes? Evidently because the objective basis of the author's thought in this connection is Philo's Therapeutes, coupled with the Eusebian tradition that these were primitive Christians. Epiphanius wishes to find them a more appropriate name, and this he has done to his satisfaction in the word Jessees.
  
  It answers his purpose in several directions. He can check it off theologically with Jesse, etymologically (through Therapeutes) with Jesus, analogically with Essees (the general class of which Philo speaks), and historically with Therapeutes (the specific term used by Philo).
  
  Thus Epiphanius, as a witness for the pre-Christian date of Jesus and of Christianity, is a distinct failure.

"Definitively declared"? I hardly think so.

Again, Shirley Jackson:

• The authorship of De vita contemplativa, so long debated, seems finally to have been decided in Philo's favor.
  
  See F. C. Conybeare, Philo about the Contemplative Life (Oxford, 1895); Massebieau, "Le traité de la vie contemplative et la question des thérapeutes," Revue de l'histoire des religions, XVI (1887), 170-98 and 284-319; Wendland, "Die Therapeuten" in Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, XXII (Suppl.), 1896, 692-770.

I find it difficult to believe that the "spuriousness" of DVC is currently accepted as the normative view.

Peter Kirby

Evangelion, you are begging the question. Of course the description of the Therapeutae was not based on Christian monasticism if Philo of Alexandria was the author. But the question is whether Philo was the author!

To Peter Reed's credit, he says only that attribution "has been ascribed to Philo." Can you present any arguments that Philo was actually the author? That would be more helpful than an opinion quotefest. Of course, I don't want anyone to take Schürer's statement at face value, only to indicate that authorship has been disputed.

best,
Peter Kirby