Some
Christians, who acknowledged the sacredness of the twenty-two book Hebrew canon
of scriptures, also found a way to accommodate the rabbinic acceptance of the
twenty-four-book canon adopted by the Jews. For example, the author of the Gospel
of Thomas (ca. 100-140 CE, and perhaps later) says that “Twenty-four
prophets spoke in Israel, and they have all spoken to you [Jesus]” (Gospel
of Thomas 52). This passage may also refer to the OT books acknowledged as
Scripture among early Christians, which if so would make it the earliest known Christian
document to identify a specific number of books in the Christian OT. Interestingly,
Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367 CE) mentions the twenty-two books of the OT in
accordance with the Hebrew alphabet, but then added Judith and Tobit
because the Greek alphabet has twenty-four letters! (Lee Martin McDonald, The
Formation of the Biblical Canon, 2 vols. [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark,
2017], 1:84)
