Luke
24:44 is the only NT reference to three parts in the Jewish Scriptures, but
there is nothing in the text to suggest that it included other books that were
later included in the collection of Writings in the Tanak. However, some of
those later designated Writings are cited in the NT as “prophetic” scriptures,
e.g., Matt 24:15 citing Dan 9:27 and Jesus’ citation of Dan 7:13 in Mark 14:62.
However, Leiman, Beckwith, and Bruce contend that “psalms” in this passage
refers to the first book of the Writings that is not representative of that
whole collection of the Writings. There is, however, no NT evidence that
supports that assertion and there is no evidence that a three-part canon
existed in the NT era or that the later third part began with the Psalms. These
scholars impose a later notion that emerges only in the rabbinic era, but it
cannot be demonstrated earlier. The Psalms were important in their own right
and could easily have been given their own place of prominence in any
collection of Scriptures. After all, the Psalms were among the three most
frequently cited Scriptures in the NT (Isaiah, Psalms, and Deuteronomy), as
well as at Qumran, and in the early churches. Also, there were more copies of
the Psalms scrolls (thirty-six or thirty-seven) discovered at Qumran than any
other book of the HB. . . . had all of the books of the HB had been formed as a
fixed collection of scriptures before the first century CE, it is remarkable
that the Christians, who adopted the scriptures of their first-century CE Jewish
siblings in the first century, also welcomed other books than those that were
later included in the HB, as in the cases of the Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Enoch,
Sirach, and others. (Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical
Canon, 2 vols. [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017], 1:277, 285)
