However, Sundberg argues that Origen was only stating the
contents of the Jewish OT canon, not the Christian canon. Sundberg argues from
the fact that Origen recognized different readings between the Hebrew OT
and the Greek text. This is pushing the evidence too far. Origen never states
that he accepts books into the OT canon that the Jews do not accept. He
only states that he accepts certain contents within the books in the
canonical collection that the Jews did not. Origen is a witness to the
popularity of books in the church which were not heretofore considered
canonical. He is not an advocate for inclusion of books in the canon
that the Jews do not accept. Ellis agrees, stating (Old Testament, 16):
His defense of the Septuagint additions to Daniel, i.e.
Susanna, does not represent a different judgement (sic) about the books that
belong in the canon. Rather, as the context makes evident, it concerns variant
readings and diverse content within a commonly received book of the Hebrew
canon. Like Justin (Dial. 71-73), Origen suspects that the texts of the
rabbis may have been tampered with
We should note one other feature of Origen’s list: he
equates the number of books with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Origen is the earliest to do this. Though Josephus enumerated the books as
twenty-two, he never connected it with the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, we do not
know of the significance of the twenty-two book canon. Were the books
deliberately arranged so as to produce the same number of books as Hebrew
letters? Or was the correspondence noted later and used as a mnemonic device? (Andrew
E. Steinmann, The Oracles of God: The Old Testament Canon [Saint Paul,
Miss.: Concordia Publishing House, 1999], 155-56)
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