I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. – 2 Peter 3:2

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 39^th 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.