Article 3a - The Origin of the Bible – A Brief Timeline of the Old Testament

By Emmanuel Gomes

Most people today don’t give it much thought on how the Bible came to be in its current form. How did we get the Bible? Where did it come from? And most importantly of all, who decided on which books should be included in the Bible? In this and subsequent article(s) we will try to dig into these questions further.

The main objective of this article is to –

• Give a historical insight (a timeline) on the development of the Bible (specifically the OT).
• What did the various sects of ancient Jews think about the Scriptures.
• What was the Jewish Scripture during Jesus’s time.

What is the meaning of the word canon?

‘Bible’ comes from the ancient word for ‘book’ or ‘scroll’ (Greek biblos). The Old Testament is a collection of books (a library) written by human beings over the course of many centuries. 

The answer to the questions mentioned above is what is known as the canon of Scripture. The word ‘canon’ comes from kanon (Greek) which itself comes from qaneh (Hebrew), meaning ‘cane’ or ‘reed’. In antiquity reeds were used as measuring sticks, hence the word ‘canon’ in early Christianity came to mean a rule, measure, or authoritative standard against which to evaluate doctrine.

When discussing the scriptural canons of Judaism and Protestantism, care must be taken that the concepts that apply only within the Catholic church must not be imposed on them. Judaism and Protestantism (as a whole) do not have a central hierarchy or authoritative body (such as the ecumenical council) invested with infallible authority on matters of faith. The Catholic canonization can be identified with the formal decisions of Church councils.

Brief history of the development of the Old Testament Canon –

The Bible’s own account for its origin begins with the references to Moses writing down the Law of God at Sinai (Ex 24:4; 34:27-28; 33:2) and receiving the Ten Commandments from God in tablets of stone (Ex 24:12; 31:18; 32:15; 34:1; Deut 5:22; 9:10). These documents were stored in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut 10:2-4; 1 Kings 8:8), thus revealing that these sacred writings were preserved and gives insight into ancient Israel’s liturgical worship.

After the wilderness wanderings, there are further references to Moses writing down the laws that comprise the book of Deuteronomy in a “book” or “scroll” (Deut 28:58, 61; 29:20-21). He then entrusted these writings to the Levitical priests (Deut 31:9), who were to store it next to the ark (Deut 1:24-26). Significantly, Moses also instructed the Levitical priests to read the “Book of the Law” (Hebrew sepher hattorah) to the people of Israel every seven years, during the Feast of Booths, when the covenant was renewed (Deut 31:9-13).

This same “Book of the Law” was the first “Bible” in Israel’s religious history. In a similar way, the Christian Bible continues to be a covenant document (in two divisions, the Old & the New) proclaimed publicly in the celebration of the covenant renewing liturgy.

Following Moses’s command (Deut 27:3-8), Joshua wrote a publicly accessible copy of the “Book of the Law” on tablets of stone on Mount Ebal in a covenant-making ceremony with the people of Israel after entering the Promised land (Josh 8:32). Joshua added supplementary material to the “Book of the Law” at the end of his life (Josh 24:26).

After the ministries of Moses and Joshua there was a long hiatus in references to the sacred writings in the Scriptures. Samuel wrote the laws of kingship (1 Sam 10:25), and later there is a mention of the Chronicles that he kept (1 Chron 29:29).

Half of the psalms are attributed to David. Solomon is remembered for having uttered 3,000 proverbs and composed 1,005 songs (1 Kings 4:32). Thus, the psalms and wisdom literature began to take shape during the reign of these two great kings (ca. 900s BC).

The rise of the “literary prophets” came at the middle of the 8^th century B.C. Though there are no evidences that early prophets such as Elijah and Elisha left any written materials, the 8^th century prophets – Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah did write at least some of their oracles, recorded in the books that bear their name.

The prophets Jeremiah & Ezekiel ministered at the end of the Judean monarchy and the beginning of the exile (ca. 630-570 B.C.). Both of their works are filled with clear references to the texts that we now find in the books of The Pentateuch. Jeremiah is strongly influenced by Deuteronomy. Likewise, Ezekiel by Leviticus. By this, it is clear that the books of the Pentateuch were available to them in the late Judean monarchy.

Sometime during the Babylonian exile (sixth century B.C.), it appears that an unknown scribe contributed and composed a history of the people of Israel from the entrance to the land until the exile. This comprises of the historical books Joshua through Kings.

After the Persians conquered Babylon (539 B.C.), Ezra, the priest, lead a large group of Babylonian exiles back to the land of Judea. He was more invested to teach the post-exile Judean community to live according to the law of Moses (Ezra 1-6). The Jewish & Christian tradition and modern scholars credit Ezra with editing the Books of Moses into their current form. Ezra’s younger contemporary Nehemiah and other prophets – Nahum, Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, Obadiah & Malachi also left literary remains and led the post-exile Judean community.

The final cultural epoch of the Old Testament came at about 333 B.C. during the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great. The additional wisdom books ( Wisdom of Solomon & Sirach), which showed influence of Greek philosophy/thought were written in the last three centuries before Christ.

The book of Maccabees, recording the battle of freedom for the Jews against the Hellenistic king Antiochus IV, were perhaps the last of the Old Testament books to be written.

What was the Jewish Scripture during Jesus’s time?

During the life of Jesus and at the time of the birth of the early Church, there was significant and widespread disagreement within Judaism over exactly which ancient Jewish writings were divinely inspired Scripture. Although, we have clear evidence that by the second century B.C. the collection of Jewish Scriptures were being put together into three main groups – 

1. The Law
2. The Prophets
3. The Writings

We can see this in the prologue of the Book of Sirach which was composed somewhere around 150 B.C. -

‘Whereas many great teachings have been given to us through the law and the prophets and the others that followed them, on account of which we should praise Israel for instruction and wisdom…’ – Prologue of the Book of Sirach.

Although, certain parts of Jewish Scriptures were widely accepted, there were other parts which were subject of continuing debate, this resulted in the fact that by the time of Jesus in the first century, there was still no “closed” canon of the Scripture, which demarcated which parts are divinely inspired and which are not. Interestingly, this was just one of the many disputed religious questions that were expected to be resolved by the coming of the Messiah (cf. Jn 4:25).

During that time, different sects within Judaism had divergent views on which collections were inspired and authoritative in nature. 

For example, the Samaritans & Sadducees, agreed that only the five books of Moses were divinely inspired Scripture (even though their religious views and practices were different to one another). 

The Pharisees, on the other hand, accepted a larger canon very close to that of the modern Jews and Protestants. 

The Essenes accepted an even larger body of the Scriptures than that given by Josephus (Jewish historian belonging to the sect of Pharisees – see pic above). The Essenes considered apocryphal works like the Book of Jubilees and various books now found together in 1 Enoch as divinely revealed. They may have even considered deuterocanonical book of Tobit as inspired.

The Greek-speaking Jews scattered around the Mediterranean outside Israel read Scriptures in Greek (translation known as the Septuagint). And based on this Greek translation work that scholars have access to, we can come to a conclusion that they accepted as inspired a larger collection than that of the Pharisees, one that roughly corresponds with the books of the Old Testament by the Catholic Church.

Hence we can conclude that, even during the time of Jesus there were questions on which books of the Scriptures were divinely inspired or not. Which brings us back to the question – Then how did we end up with the Bible that we have now? We will discuss this topic in our next article.

Reference -

1. A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre