The following comes
from:
Albert C. Sundberg,
Jr., "The
Old Testament of the Early Church" Revisited
Another important
consideration is the canonical situation reflected in the so-called Kaige
Recension, [48] which case is made by Cross. Discussing Josephus statement
about the canon (Apion 1.37-42), Cross (1992:153f.) writes:
Thinly
concealed behind Josephus Greek apologetics is a clear and coherent theological
doctrine of canon that must stem, we believe, from the canonical doctrine of
Hillel (70 B.C.E.[?]-10 C.E.[?]) and his school.
We cannot press
the date of the fixation of the Pharisaic canon earlier than the time of
Hillel, as an occasional scholar has attempted to do. Our evidence comes from
the so-called Kaige Recension. . . . The Kaige Recension,
at the end of the first century B.C., revised the Greek Bible to accord with
the protorabbinic text, not with the later fixed Rabbinic Recension. Similarly,
the revision embodied in the Kaïge [sic.] Recension extended to the book of
Baruch and the longer edition of Daniel, works excluded from the Rabbinic
Recension. This effort to update Baruch and the longer edition of Daniel would
be most difficult to explain if at the same time of the preparation of the
Kaige Recension, the book of Baruch and the additions to Daniel had already
been excluded from the Pharisaic canon. Since the recensional labors in the
Kaige Recension can be dated to about the turn of the Common Era, and its
Pharisaic bias is clear, it follows that as late as the end of the first
century B.C., an authoritative, canonical list had not yet emerged, at least in
its final form, even in Pharisaic circles.
Thus, the
revisions to Baruch and the extended Daniel in the Kaige Recension in
Alexandria provides another firm piece of evidence that the Writings were not
yet, at the turn of the era, formed into a fixed collection either in fact,
i.e., canonized, or de facto.
Cross
(1956:122-123) adds still another important feature to the discussion about the
shape of the canon in the first half of the first century C.E. He is able to
tell us that it is very probable that Daniel was not regarded as canonical at
Qumran. This results from his analysis of the formats of documents and styles
of script. Cross says that it is a fairly standard practice in copying biblical
books that the columns tend to be twice as long as they are wide. The script is
usually the Jewish bookhand, or occasionally the Paleo-Hebrew script--but not
the cursive. The material of the scroll is leather. The same techniques
sometimes apply for non-biblical texts among which there is a great deal of
variety. But biblical texts are much more standardized. In the case of Daniel,
however, Cave 4 held a manuscript of Daniel written on papyrus. One other
biblical manuscript written on papyrus has been found, in Cave 6, the Book of
Kings (clearly canonical). The script standardization does not always hold up.
Cave 4 has produced some biblical manuscripts written in cursive Hebrew, but
they are rare. Also biblical works with a-typical (for canonical books)
columns, typical for non-canonical books have also appeared in other caves.
Most of these are works whose canonicity was questioned by the early rabbis,
Canticles and Ecclesiastes. Thus the evidence in these matters is not
infallible. However, at least four different copies of Daniel found at Qumran
do not conform to the standards for biblical manuscripts. This, Cross (1956:123)
concludes, "strongly suggests its (Daniels) non-canonical status."
In sum, then,
the three different descriptions of books other than the Law and the Prophets
in the prologue of Sirach do not reflect a fixed third collection nor is a
closed canon evident in 2 Maccabees description of Nehemiahs collected library
of "books about the kings and prophets and the writings of David and
letters of kings about sacred gifts." Both the mention of David in 4QMMT
and the mention of Psalms in Lk. 24.44 are amenable to a plain, simple
understanding; arguing that they are evidence of a closed canon is overloading
their evidentiary use. The post-70 dating of the rabbinic revision of the
Scriptures holds Josephus claimed long-standing text and canon in question. The
Qumran sect and early Christians had and used apocryphal writings in ways indistinguishable
from their use of Law and Prophets; apocryphal literature appears to have
circulated among Pharisees before 70 as well as after. It is probable that
early Christians adopted the use of the apocryphal literature from what
appeared to them as quite common usage in pre-70 Judaism. The Kaige Recension,
including, as it did, Baruch and the long form of Daniel augurs against a
closed rabbinic canon at the change of the era. The Book of Daniel, appearing,
as it does, in usually non-canonical textual from at Qumran also counters a
closed canon before 68 C.E. It therefore appears well founded that early
Christianity received its heritage of religious writings including apocryphal
writings from a practice in pre-70 Judaism that included Pharisees, the Qumran
sect, and, perhaps, many nonaligned in Judaism.
. . .
The earliest evidence of the
protorabbinic text in Samuel was found in the recension of the Theodotionic
School, the so-called Kaige Recension (discussed above) from the end of the
first century B.C.E. Since the Kaige Recension included the book of Baruch and
the long form of Daniel, it is clear that an authorized Pharisaic canonical
list had not yet emerged, at least in its final form, by the end of the first
century B.C.E. Cross is persuaded that the same pressures that led to textual
revision also led to canonization and that Hillel was the moving force in these
actions. Both were undertaken to protect the Hillelites from rival doctrines of
cult and calendar, alternate legal prescriptions, theological doctrines and
mythological excesses of apocalyptic schools and proto-Gnostic sects. "The
principles guiding the exclusion of works [such as fill the Qumran library]
from the Pharisaic canon reflected in Josephus notices no doubt also operated
in eliminating works offensive to Hillel and the house of Hillel," Cross
(1992:155) remarks. He sees the hand of Hillel in the promulgation of both a
Pharisaic revised text and canon recognized in the rabbinic saying, "When
Israel once again forgot [the Torah], Hillel the Babylonian came up and
re-established it" (Cross 1992:155). Moreover, Cross recognizes that this
text and canon were not immediately received. The general acceptance of the
Hillelite text and canon came with ascendancy of the Hillelites during the
interval between the wars against Rome, 70-135 C.E. After 135, despite some
continued rabbinical questions about certain marginal books, the text and canon
of the Hebrew canon remained fixed.
Notes for the
Above:
[48] The so-called
Kaige Recension is the earliest evidence of a protorabbinic text in Samuel
found in the recension of the Theodotionic School (Alexandria), dating from the
end of the first century B.C.E. The Hebrew text used for this revision is
protorabbinic, not identical to the Pharisaic Bible. Cross, 1992:300, n. 11.