Day 2: Cannons and Translations

Note:  the Final Exam will be taken at 3pm on December 16th in the lecture room.

CE:  Common Era
BCE:  Before Common Era

KEY QUESTION:  How did the Bible get into our hands?
   Two compononets:  1) Cannon, and 2) Translations

Cannons
   --the Hebrew Bible is a "tripart text" text because it is divided into three parts:
      the Law, Prophets, and the Writings.

• Jews
• divisions are the Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim
• **called "Tanakh" for short** 
• no Apocrypha
• Protestants (Old Testament)
• major difference from Hebrew Bible:  Prophets at the end and the Writings are in the middle
• no Apocrypha
• Roman Catholics
• Apocrypha
• Green Orthodoxy has further Apocrypha

Composing a Cannon
**The Hebrew Bible is said to be composed into what it is today by the 1st century CE**
  
   The issue:  The Jews had many books in several different languages, so they had no set Cannon.

   The Dead Sea Scrolls

• found, sealed and buired, in 1947 by accident   
• **Significance:  they reveal was which sacred texts were read in the early 1st century**

   Josephus

• stated that there were 22 sacred books of the Hebrew Bible
• **Significance:  this means that the Jews had already established what was in the Hebrew Bible**

   Yavneh

• legendary council of rabbis who established the Cannon
• Daniel, Songs of Solomon, and Ezekiel were all debated
• **standard for exclusion:  post-prophetic works**

Translation

• Septuagint:  the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible
• written in the 3rd century CE
• "seven scholars" worked on the translation
• included Apocrypha
• rearranged the cannonical order

Note:  **The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint are major helps in tracking the development of the Hebrew Bible**

• Vulgate:  Gerome translated the Bible into Latin
• Hebrew with vowels
• the Masoretes created a new Hebrew writing system with vowels
• they re-wrote and officially composed the Hebrew Bible in the 10th century CE
• Muslims had recently added vowels and translated the Quran

The English translations

• 1st-8th centuries
• some select paraphrases in Old English
• 8th century inter-linear gloss for monasteries
• a collection of Psalms in Old English
• John Wycliff:  translated the Vulgate (Latin) into English
• 14th century (before printing press)
•  wanted the people to have the Bible
• condemnation
• Guttenberg (Germany):  movable type
• first printing was the Psalms
• 1450 Vulgate printed
• Tyndale:  New Testament in English (1525)
• Coverdale:  printed entire Bible translated from Vulgate to English (?)
• ~~~~~~Reformation~~~~~~
• King James:  "starting over"
• scholars recruited to translate the Bible to English from the original Greek and Hebrew
• project lasted from 1604 to1611
• named the "King James Version"