The Canonical Order: which publisher will rise to the challenge?
October 28th, 2007 by Danny ZachariasThis past week Acadia hosted its annual Hayward lectures. Dr. Christopher Seitz was the speaker and his topic was having to do with the canonical order of the Hebrew Bible. Not surprisingly, he is an advocate for the tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible — I’m not sure I have heard a Hebrew Bible professor who wasn’t. What he aimed to show, though, was that the tripartite order of Torah, Prophets, and Writings causes us when reading to associate some books with others. His focus primarily was on the area of the prophets in particular, and it was this area that most interested me. In a nutshell, putting the latter prophets with the former prophets causes us to associate the 12, Isaiah, etc., with the Deuteronomistic history. This is a welcome word in a modern day church that thinks Tim LaHaye has figured out how to understand the Hebrew prophets.
During Dr. Seitz’s lectures, he emphasized, with a handout from Lee McDonald’s book, that the traditional Protestant order (torah, history, poetry, prophecy) is not represented in any early canonical list. While there is some shuffling of the Tanak order in ancient lists, the tripartite division is still there.
This got me to thinking, and it came up in the lectures as well, is there any trained biblical scholar today who argues for the protestant order of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament? My guess is no. And yet almost every Bible sold today follows this improper order. Why is that? There is nothing inherently “Christian” about the current order, aside perhaps from Malachi being a nice ‘closer’ that leads into the NT. And yet this order persists. Dr. Seitz mentioned the JPS translation as being the only one to follow the tripartite order. This is the only translation I know of as well and I know that there are very few Christians buying the JPS translation. Are there any others? I suspect not, and I really have to wonder why.
Which leads me to the title of this blog. Is there any popular publisher like Zondervan or HarperCollins that is willing to acknowledge current (and ancient) consensus regarding the order of the HB/OT and henceforth publish their Bibles in this order? Is there really any legitimate reason not to? I would contend that there could actually be much to be gained intellectually. The average Christian in the pew, somewhat puzzled by an unfamiliar order, may actually look into the reason why and learn a little about the Jewish heritage of their Old Testament. The association factor may also cause more fruitful reading of the Bible in Protestant churches.
Any publishers dare to rise to the challenge?
October 28th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
It’s alos true that the Jewish order isn’t represented in any early Christian canon lists. Typically in the earliest lists, the poetic/wisdom books are interposed between the former and latter prophets, e.g. Melito, Athanasius, Cyril
October 29th, 2007 at 2:50 am
The French _Traduction Oecumenique de la Bible_ uses the tripartite order.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Danny,
Two things: first, I think that Sean Kelly defends the traditional Christian ordering of the canon in an article in *The Bible Today*, published probably about seven years ago.
Second, Joseph Blenkinsopp, I think, points to the propriety of the ending of Malachi as a sort of coda to the entire Old Testament, in that it looks forward to the sending of Elijah. He pairs this ending with Deuteronomy’s looking forward to a Mosaic figure. These two compartments of the Old Testament are then (and I don’t remember here if Blenkinsopp says this or if it’s someone else) symbolized for some by the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. While I think that the Transfiguration really has little to do with it, I think it’s fairly certain that ending the OT with the promise of Elijah’s return is the reason for the present order of the books within the Christian Bible. (After Malachi, one moves on to Matthew, which refers, near the beginning, to the coming of John the Baptist. It makes perfect narrative sense.)
Did Seitz mention any of this in his talk? The reason I ask is that I just read his *Word without End*, and I found that he has an annoying tendency to leave a lot of important information out of the discussion.
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
you may want to check out the books of the bible: here. It may not be in the “right” order (what do i know about canon stuff) but it’s worth a look. i just got mine in the mail.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Interesting point Doug.
John, I would like to refer you to Seitz himself. You can now watch the Hayward lectures online at adc.acadiau.ca. Go to the Hayward lectures section.