amnia), that the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Akiba [Gritz, R. Jacob] said, “God forbid that any one in Israel should doubt that the Song of Songs defiles the hands; the whole world does not outweigh the day in which Israel received the Song of Songs. All the Kethu- bhim are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holiest. If they have contested, it was with reference to Ecclesiastes.” But R. Johanan ben- Jeshua, R. Akiba’s brother-in-law, said, ‘‘As R. Simeon ben-Azai has laid it down, so they dis- puted, and so they decided”? (Meg. Jadaim iii. 5, quoted in Buhl, F 29). The same tradition with some variety of detail is given also in Bab. Meg. ja. These extracts refer to a council, or perhaps we should call it a debate, at Jamnia, held, it is said, about A.D. 90. As the discussion from which the above quotation is taken is prefaced by the statement, ‘All holy scriptures defile the hands, even Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes defile them,’ we may naturally infer that all the disputed books, either tacitly or expneelys received the imprimatur of the council. After the fall of Jerusalem, Jamnia became the centre of Pales- tinian Judaism. The zeal and enthusiasm which had been shown by the Jews in their sacrificial system now seems to have found a new focus in sacred literature (see Griitz, Hist. Jews, U. ch. xiii.). The decisions of this school, if not con- sidered absolutely binding, must at least have had a very strong and far-reaching influence on Jewish opinion. If it is an exaggeration to say that the
anon of the OT was finally settled at the Council of Jamnia, it certainly goes a long way towards the truth.
(ad) The Second Book of Esdras, c. 90 A.D.—This tradition, in itself so probable, is confirmed, as far as it goes, by a passage in the Apocalyptic Fourth Book of Esdras (2 Es 14*-*), in which, according to the text of the Oriental versions,* of the 94 sacred books miraculously written out at Ezra’s quota- tion, 70 were to be kept secret, the remaining 24 divulged. The number 24 corresponds to that of the canonical books as ordinarily reckoned by the Jews. The writer of this apocryphal work must be understood, therefore, as claiming that all the 24 canonical books were written out at Ezra’s dictation. This book is, on internal evidence, ascribed to the age of Domitian, and would there- fore be about contemporary with the Council of
* The Latin MSS have 204, 84, 974. 904 being, according to Ryle, the best attested reading, but the Oriental VSS agree in θ᾽ Moe, Ryle, . 285). This latter reading has also intrinsic probability in its favour, yet not so obviously as to have been * cause of corruption.
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Jamnia. The writer’s object in setting down what is Eropably a pure fiction of his own, is to give credit to his work, as one of the 70 secret books ; as far as the canonical books are concerned, it may be regarded as merely the echo of received opinion,
(e) Josephus, c. 90 A.D.—Of still greater import- ance is the poretcally contemporary evidence of Josephus: ‘For there are not with us myriads of books discordant and discrepant, but only two and twenty, comprising the history of all time, which are Justly accredited (om. θεῖα, Heinichen in Euseb. 1. x.). And of these, five are the books of Moses, which comprise the laws and the tradition of man’s origin up to the time of Moses’ death. This period is little less than 300 years. From the death of Moses until that of Artaxerxes, who was king of the Persians after Xerxes, th. prophets who succeeded Moses wrote the events of their times in 13 books. The remaining 4 books contain hymns to God and counsels of life for men. From the time of Artaxerxes up to our own everything has been recorded, but the records have not been accounted equally worthy of credit with those written before them, because the exact succession of py rerhiete ceased’ (c. Ap. i. 8, quoted in Euseb. ΗΕ πὶ. x.). Here we find not only a description of books, but a theory of canonicity. Those books could alone be accounted Scripture which preceded the death of Artaxerxes (i.e. Xerxes, see Ryle, pp. 161, 162 n.), at which time the prophetic gift ceased. Later books were, therefore, of less esteem, though they might, as, e.g., 1 Mac, have a historical value. The very existence of such a theory seems to imply that the fact of canonicity itself was Serer Ὡς Josephus as indisputable, and this is confirmed by his further statement : ‘And we give plain proof of our attitude towards our own Scnptures: for though so long a time has passed, no one has dared either to add or change anything, but all Jews are naturally disposed from their very birth to consider them the decrees of God, to abide by them, and gladly to die, if need be, on their behalf’ (7d.). This cannot, of course, in the face of the literary criticism of the Bible, be accepted as a historical statement of fact; but did it express the current opinion among the Jews of the time of Josephus, and, if so, how is it to be reconciled with the traditions of the Council of Jamnia, and still more with the disputations of certain Rabbis mentioned above ?