Some ancient texts cited in Numbers
and in Joshua to 2 Chronicles appear to have been viewed as prophetic texts,
but they were eventually lost. They were cited in an authoritative manner and
appear to have functioned like scripture for the Israelite nation temporarily,
but by about 500-450 BCE these texts were no longer cited and somehow were
lost, whether during the destruction of Jerusalem, the exile, or perhaps in
natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, and floods. It is also possible
that when ancient religious texts were no longer deemed relevant to the ongoing
life of the nation of Israel, they simply were no longer copied or preserved
after about 450-400 BCE. . . . . In several of these references, writings are
attributed to prophets or seers, as in the case of “records of the seer Samuel”
(e.g., 1 Chr 29:29; cf. 1 Sam 9:9, 11, 18, 19; 1 Chr 9:22; 26:28). Similarly, a
second source for the account of the activities of David is the “records of the
prophet Nathan” (1 Chr 29:29; 2 Chr 9:29; 29:25); we also see books by
the prophet Iddo, who saw the end of Solomon’s reign (2 Chr 13:22), the prophet
Shemaiah and the seer Iddo (12;15). Also Iddo is mentioned later:
the acts of Abijah are written in the “story of the prophet Iddo”
(13:22), and the acts of Manasseh, along with the “words of the seers,”
are recorded in the “annals of the Kings of Israel” (33:18), and “records of
the seer Gad” (1 Chr 29:29; cf. 1 Chr 21:9 and 2 Sam 24:11).
We do not know the contents of
these lost books; yet we have some indication from a few of the citations, as
in the case of the two references to the Book of Jashar. More importantly, the
references to prophets and seers are about those who were believed to have
received a message from God that they communicated to the people. It is
possible that initially the records or annals were only understood as
histories, but such texts eventually were welcomed as sacred scripture among
the Jews and were called the “[former] prophets.” Such texts were included in
the Jewish scriptures, as we see in the cases of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel,
1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. What one concludes about
the lost writings is difficult to say since for the most part we only know some
of the stories that are included in them are not their whole contents, but the
context in which several of the stories are cited suggests that the stories at
least functioned in an authoritative manner in Israelite religious communities.
That kind of function is not far from the notion of scripture.
It also is difficult to know the
extent to which the ancient Israelite community accepted these lost texts as
scripture, but some of them may have functioned either as scripture or as
trusted sources for the faith and life of various Jewish sects before the
second century CE. There are many other known texts that have survived
antiquity and that at one time functioned as authoritative religious texts for
some Jews. These are commonly identified today as Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphal
texts, but initially both Jews and eventually some Christians welcomed them as
sacred religious texts. Initially in antiquity, they were not viewed as
extraneous or noncanonical texts. (Lee Martin McDonald, “Recognizing Jewish
Religious Texts as Scripture,” in Ancient Jewish and Christian Scriptures:
New Developments in Canon Controversy, ed. John J. Collins, Craig A. Evans,
and Lee Martin McDonald [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020], 52,
53-54)
