Saturday, July 27, 2024

Andrew W. Steinmann on Origen's Listing of the Old Testament Books

  

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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