On "Restoring the Original Bible" by Ernest L. Martin *****

Although frequently repetitive, this work is an excellent resource for those who wish to know, from an ultraconservative perspective, how the Bible was canonized. Most scholars take the position that the canonization of the scriptures happened sometime between the second and fourth centuries CE, with the final writings of the Old Testament taking place as late as the second century BCE and of the New Testament in the second century (or late first century) CE. Martin takes the position that was the norm before biblical criticism of the nineteenth century called this into question and became the standard view among academics. (Having previously read Paul R. Finch's Beyond Acts, I see now where Finch drew most of his claims, adding to them the legends regarding the spread of Christianity in the Britain in the first century.)

Martin's real point is to encourage Bible translators to "restore the original Bible"--that is, to put the Bible in its original order, as it exists in various older versions of the manuscripts. Here, Martin does an excellent job of showing how and why the Jews placed the Old Testament in the order that they originally did, with the Torah (our traditional first five books) coming first, then the Prophets (which include also Joshua, Judges, and Kings), and then the Writings (which include Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Chronicles). Some of the latter seem oddly positioned in this "original" version, when we think of Daniel, for example, being a prophet or the Chronicles being largely history, but Martin shows how and why the canonizers settled on this order using various methods, some having to do with how each section of the Old Testament reflects temple worship and priestly responsibilities, some having to do with numerology (in the original Jewish canon, several works are combined, making for just twenty-two books, which combined with the New Testament makes forty-nine books, or seven times seven). The versions coming down to us today largely use the Septuagint, whose order was different. Although Martin's comments with regard to the priestly tie-ins, the five books written specifically for women, the books written for kings, and so on are really interesting, one can certainly see some reasons for the Septuagint order as well.

The New Testament order is also altered from the original manuscripts, according to Martin. This happened through the work of Jerome, insofar as he reordered the New Testament when he created his Latin Vulgate. Indeed, the original order actually makes a good deal more sense other than that Jerome's version does put several works that seem quite last toward the back, giving the New Testament more of a chronological feel in some ways, though those were not the likely reasons for Jerome's reordering. The original order places the seven general epistles directly after Acts. The reason for this is that they are generally more basic in instruction, and importantly, they are written by and to Jews. Throughout canonization, as Martin brings out, one's connection to the Jewish priestly line was often the reason items were placed in the order that they were; also, this would put the New Testament in the order that the Gospel was preached--to the Jew first, that is. Then come Paul's epistles. Here, too, Jerome made a change, placing Hebrews at the very end, rather than just before the pastoral epistles. In each case, Jerome was likely pushing an agenda of Roman authority, ensuring that it came directly after Acts rather than works that were written to a Jewish church.

What's very interesting in a lot of this discussion, however, is the degree to which some things that we think we don't know were actually fairly uncontroversial at earlier dates. We don't know, for example, who wrote Hebrews, and yet Martin shows how Paul was known as the author to most writers for several centuries after Paul's death. The quotes Martin offers for this and other points with regard to the Bible's canonization and order seem like extremely convincing testimonials (Augustine, for example, telling us that it was the apostles themselves that set out the canon of the New Testament).

In other words, I wasn't as moved by Martin's discussions about the order of the books as I was by his discussions of how the books operate in that order and by how those books came to be canonized, if we take a conservative view. As Finch goes into a lot of the same story with the New Testament, I won't revisit that here; however, one detail that has always mystified me that Martin has a good hypothesis on has to do with how Easter came to be chosen as a day to worship on rather than Passover. Certainly, there are reasons related to wanting to avoid Jewish associations at a time when the Jews had revolted against Rome and were thus looked down upon and persecuted in response, and to the fact that Easter had certain connections to pagan traditions, but those points haven't seemed quite enough for me in terms of how some would celebrate a Eucharist on Easter versus Passover. Martin (in chapter 26) takes the position that after Hadrian's banning of the Jews from Judea but before Jewish authorities convened a council about seven years later, the Jewish calendar was in disarray, owing to the fact that there was no temple authority to dilineate when the year was to start, or if there would be a leap month (as happens on the Jewish calendar seven out of every nineteen years). As such the Jewish holy days began slip from their normal seasons (such that Passover even fell in January), and in the absense of an agreed-on calendar (for Christians and Jews), believers were left to fend for themselves in terms of figuring out whether to let further slipping occur and whether the sacred year's start should be adjusted. It was at this juncture, Martin claims, that some Christians took on the Easter practice, given that there was no agreed-on calendar to follow. Roman Christians stuck with the Easter tradition, even after the Jewish calendar dilemma was resolved (with a calculated calendar that now allowed Passover to occasionally precede the vernal equinox, whereas Easter always follows it--this was the occassion, a year in which this happened, for Polycarp's visit to Anicetus in Rome to try to resolve this differing views).