Today's Scripture Reading (May 7, 2021): 2 Peter 3
It is hard to imagine that there
was a time when the Bible as we know it simply didn't exist. The Tanakh or
Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) only existed as a collection of scrolls that were
circulated independently of each other. The Septuagint was one of the first
attempts to gather all of the texts into one place, but that wasn't
accomplished unto the one or two hundred years before the birth of Christ. And
the influential Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible wouldn't appear until around
a thousand years after the Septuagint.
The Christian text existed as
various letters and documents passed around between the Christian
congregations. A definitive list of the Christian books that should be included
in a Christian Testament didn't appear until 367 C.E. and the writing of the 39th
Festal Letter (Easter Letter) of Bishop Athanasius of Alexander. In the letter,
Athanasius lists all of the books of the Jewish Tanakh as writings that Christians
should accept, but added to the Jewish Canon the "Book of Baruch" and
the "Letter of Jeremiah." More importantly, this letter includes the
list of proposed books for the Christian Testament. For the first time in
history, Athanasius lists the familiar twenty-seven that we have in our Bibles
today, with no additions. Finally, Christianity had its canon, although Western
tradition would eventually lose the "Book of Baruch" and the "Letter
of Jeremiah," leaving our "Old Testament" identical with the
accepted canon of the Jewish Tanakh that Jewish believers read.
But as Peter writes these words,
these developments are still just over three centuries in the future. But even
though the Jewish canon is still fresh, and the Christian Canon is not yet set,
Peter instructs his readers to value both equally. They are to give attention to
the words of the prophets, written in times past. The instructions of the
Tanakh were instructive for how we got to where we are.
The words of the past are tempered
by the instructions for life given by Jesus and the apostles. It is important
to note that if Peter wrote this near the end of his life, likely late in 64 C.E.
or early in 65 C.E., it is possible that none of the Gospels had yet been written.
The only Gospel that could have been written was Mark. The instructions that
Peter talks about are the instructions that were being passed down through
letters written by the apostles, such as Paul, James, the leader of the church in
Rome and the brother of Jesus, and of course, the letters that Peter had
written himself. There were probably other letters and authors which have been lost
in the fog of time. As Peter writes about "the command given by our Lord and Savior through your
apostles," John's letters
were still waiting to be written, as well as, at minimum, the gospels of
Matthew, Luke, and John, and the history presented in Acts, and John's
Revelation. It is not that these aren't valuable, just that they hadn't yet
been written.
Still, there was enough that had
been written. Peter felt that the instructions of Jesus were well represented in
the letters that existed from the Apostles. He believed that the people could
gather their education for life from what had been written in history about
God, augmented by the recent letters written by the very people who had walked
with Jesus and listened to his teachings.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Hebrews 1
Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my son, Craig.
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