Part III, Chapter XXXIII, 1

OF THE NUMBER, ANTIQUITY, SCOPE, AUTHORITY, AND INTERPRETERS OF THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

The books of Holy SCRIPTURE are those that ought to be the canon, that is, the rules of Christian life. And since all rules of life that men are bound in conscience to observe are laws, the question of Scripture is the question of what constitutes law throughout Christendom, both natural and civil. Scripture does not determine which laws each Christian king shall enact within his dominions, but it does determine which laws he shall not enact. Since I have already proved that sovereigns are the sole legislators within their own dominions, only those books established as such by sovereign authority are canonical—that is, law—in any nation. God, it is true, is sovereign over all sovereigns; when he speaks to a subject, that subject ought to obey him, whatever an earthly ruler commands to the contrary. But the question is not whether to obey God; it is when and what God has spoken. Subjects who have no supernatural revelation can know this only by the natural reason that led them, in pursuit of peace and justice, to obey the authority of their respective Common-wealths—that is, their lawful sovereigns. In keeping with this obligation, I can acknowledge as Holy Scripture no books of the Old Testament other than those that the authority of the Church of England has commanded us to acknowledge as such. These books are well enough known without a catalog here. They are the same books acknowledged by St. Jerome, who holds the rest—namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobias, the first and second of Maccabees (though he had seen the first in Hebrew), and the third and fourth of Esdras—to be Apocrypha. Of the canonical books Josephus, a learned Jew writing in the time of the Emperor Domitian, counts Twenty Two, matching the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. St. Jerome counts the same number, though he groups them differently. Josephus counts Five books of Moses, Thirteen of prophets who wrote the history of their own times (how that agrees with the prophetic writings in the Bible we shall see later), and Four of hymns and moral precepts. St. Jerome counts Five books of Moses, Eight of prophets, and Nine of other holy writings, which he calls Hagiographa. The Septuagint, 70. learned Jews summoned by Ptolemy, King of Egypt, to translate the Jewish law from Hebrew into Greek, have left us no books as holy Scripture in Greek other than those received by the Church of England.

As for the books of the New Testament, all Christian Churches and all Christian sects that admit any books as canonical acknowledge them equally as canon.

No sufficient testimony from other history—the only proof of a matter of fact—has established who originally wrote the several books of Holy Scripture. Nor can arguments from natural reason establish it, since reason demonstrates the truth of consequences, not of facts. We must therefore seek guidance on this question in what the books themselves show us. Though they do not identify the writer of every book, they are not useless in establishing when the books were written.

First, the fact that the Pentateuch is called the five books of Moses is not enough to prove that Moses wrote them, any more than the titles The Book of Joshua, The Book of Judges, The Book of Ruth, and The Books of the Kings suffice to prove that Joshua, the judges, Ruth, and the kings wrote those books. A book's title marks its subject as often as its author. The History of Livy names the author; the History of Scanderbeg takes its name from its subject. In the last chapter of Deuteronomy, Ver. 6, we read concerning Moses' grave “that no man knows his grave to this day”—that is, to the day those words were written. Clearly, then, the words were written after his burial. It would be a strange interpretation to say that Moses spoke of his own grave, even prophetically, as undiscovered up to a day when he was still alive. Perhaps it will be alleged that only the last chapter, not the whole Pentateuch, was written by another person. Let us therefore consider Genesis, Chap. 12. Ver. 6: “And Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem, to the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanite was then in the land.” These must be the words of someone writing when the Canaanites were no longer in the land, and therefore not of Moses, who died before entering it. Likewise, in Numbers 21. Ver. 14, the writer cites an older book entitled The Book of the Wars of the Lord, which recorded the acts of Moses at the Red Sea and the brook of Arnon. It is therefore sufficiently evident that the five books of Moses were written after his time, although how long afterward is less clear.

But although Moses did not compile those books in their entirety or in the form in which we have them, he did write everything they say he wrote. For example, there is the volume of the Law, apparently contained in the 11 of Deuteronomy and the following chapters up to the 27., which was also ordered to be written on stones when the people entered the land of Canaan. (Deut. 31. 9) Moses himself wrote this and gave it to the priests and elders of Israel to be read to all Israel every seventh year when they assembled for the feast of Tabernacles. This is the Law of which God commanded their kings, once that form of government was established, to take a copy from the priests and Levites to place beside the Ark. (Deut. 31. 26) It is the same Law that, after being lost, was found again much later by Hilkiah and sent to King Josias. He had it read to the people and renewed the covenant between them and God. (2 King. 22. 8 & 23. 1,2,3)

Many passages in the Book of Joshua suggest that it too was written long after Joshua's time. Joshua had set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan as a memorial of the people's crossing. (Josh 4. 9) Of these the writer says, “They are there to this day.” (Josh 5. 9) For “to this day” is a phrase signifying a time so distant it is beyond living memory. Likewise, when the Lord says he has rolled away the people's reproach of Egypt, the writer adds, “The place is called Gilgal to this day,” an expression that would have been inappropriate in Joshua's time. And concerning the name of the Valley of Achor, given because of the trouble Achan caused in the camp, the writer says (Josh. 7. 26) that it “remains to this day”; this too must have been written long after Joshua. There are many other arguments of the same kind, as in Josh. 8. 29. 13. 13. 14. 14. 15. 63.

Similar arguments make the same point about the Book of Judges, chap. 1. 21,26 6.24 10.4 15.19 17.6, and Ruth 1. 1., but especially Judg. 18. 30., where it is said that Jonathan “and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.”

Similar arguments show that the Books of Samuel were also written after Samuel's time: 1 Sam. 5.5. 7.13,15. 27.6. & 30.25. After David had ruled that those who guarded the supplies should receive an equal share of the spoils with those who fought, the writer says, “He made it a statute and an ordinance in Israel to this day.” (2. Sam. 6.4.) Again, when David, angered that the Lord had struck down Uzzah for reaching out to steady the Ark, named the place Perez-Uzzah, the writer says it is called that “to this day.” Thus the book must have been written long after the event—that is, long after David's time.

As for the two Books of the Kings and the two Books of the Chronicles, they include passages mentioning monuments that, the writer says, remained in his own day: 1 Kings 9.13. 9.21. 10. 12. 12.19. 2 Kings 2.22. 8.22. 10.27. 14.7. 16.6. 17.23. 17.34. 17.41. 1 Chron. 4.41. 5.26. But the continuation of their history to the captivity in Babylon is proof enough that they were written after it. For the recorded events always precede the books that mention and cite the record, as these books repeatedly do when they refer readers to the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, the books of the Prophet Samuel or the Prophet Nathan, of the Prophet Ahijah, the Vision of Jehdo, and the books of the Prophet Serveiah and the Prophet Addo.

The books of Esdras and Nehemiah were certainly written after the return from captivity, for they contain accounts of that return, the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls and houses, the renewal of the covenant, and the establishment of their government.

The history of Queen Esther takes place at the time of the Captivity; its writer must therefore have lived then or afterward.

The Book of Job contains no indication of when it was written. Though it is sufficiently clear (Exekiel 14.14, and James 5.11.) that Job was not an invented person, the book itself seems less a history than a treatise on a question much debated in ancient times: “Why have wicked men often prospered in this world, while good men have suffered?” This is the more likely because, as St. Jerome testifies, the Hebrew is in prose from the beginning through the third verse of the third chapter, where Job's complaint begins; from there through the sixth verse of the last chapter it is in hexameter verse; and the remainder of the last chapter is again in prose. The whole debate, then, is in verse, with prose added as a preface at the beginning and an epilogue at the end. Verse is not the usual manner of people suffering great pain, like Job, or of those who come to comfort them, like his friends; but in ancient times it was common in philosophy, especially moral philosophy.

Most of the Psalms were written by David for the use of the choir. To these have been added some songs of Moses and other holy men, and some Psalms written after the return from the Captivity, such as the 137. and the 126. It is therefore clear that the Psalter was compiled and given its present form after the Jews returned from Babylon.

The Proverbs are a collection of wise and godly sayings, some by Solomon, some by Agur the son of Jakeh, and some by the mother of King Lemuel. It is no more plausible that Solomon collected them than that Agur or Lemuel's mother did. Though the sayings are theirs, some other godly person who lived after them all must have collected and compiled them into one book.

The books of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles contain nothing that is not Solomon's, except perhaps their titles or inscriptions. For “The words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King in Jerusalem” and “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's” seem to have been added to distinguish the books when the books of Scripture were gathered together into one body of law, so that not only the doctrine but also its authors might be known.

Of the Number, Age, Purpose, Authority, and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture

The books of Holy Scripture are the books that should form the canon, meaning the rules of Christian life. Every rule for living that people are bound by conscience to observe is a law. So the question about Scripture is a question about what counts as Law, both natural and civil, throughout Christianity. Scripture does not specify which Laws each Christian King must establish in his dominions, but it does specify which he must not establish. I have already shown that Sovereigns alone make Laws in their own dominions. So in any nation only the books its Sovereign Authority establishes as canonical are canonical, or Law. God is, of course, Sovereign over all Sovereigns. When he speaks to a subject, that person should obey him, regardless of what any earthly ruler orders. But the question is not whether to obey God. It is when and what God has said. Subjects who receive no supernatural revelation can learn this only through the natural reason that led them to obey their respective Common-wealths, or lawful Sovereigns, in order to secure peace and justice. For that reason I can acknowledge as Holy Scripture no books of the Old Testament except those that the authority of the Church of England orders us to acknowledge. It is well known which books these are, so there is no need to list them here. They are the same books St. Jerome acknowledged. He regarded the others—the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobias, the first and second of Maccabees (although he had seen the first in Hebrew), and the third and fourth of Esdras—as Apocrypha. Josephus, a learned Jew writing under Emperor Domitian, counted Twenty Two canonical books, matching the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. St. Jerome also counted that many, though he divided them differently. Josephus counted Five Books of Moses, Thirteen by prophets who wrote histories of their own times (we shall later see how this fits the prophetic writings in the Bible), and Four books of hymns and moral rules. St. Jerome counted Five Books of Moses, Eight of prophets, and Nine other sacred books, which he called the Hagiographa. The Septuagint were 70. learned Jews whom Ptolemy, King of Egypt, summoned to translate the Jewish Law from Hebrew into Greek. They left us in Greek no other books as holy Scripture beyond those accepted by the Church of England.

All Christian Churches and all Christian sects that accept any books as canonical agree equally that the books of the New Testament are canonical.

No adequate evidence from other historical accounts establishes who originally wrote the different books of Holy Scripture. Such evidence is the only way to prove a matter of fact. Nor can natural reason establish it: reason proves the truth of a conclusion, not of a historical fact. We must therefore use evidence found within the books themselves. It cannot tell us the writer of every book, but it can help us know when they were written.

First, the name “five Books of Moses” does not prove Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Nor do the names Book of Joshua, Book of Judges, Book of Ruth, and Books of the Kings prove Joshua, the Judges, Ruth, and the Kings wrote those books. A title can identify the subject as readily as the writer. The History of Livy identifies its writer, but the History of Scanderbeg takes its name from its subject. In the last chapter of Deuteronomy, Ver. 6. says of Moses's grave that “no one knows where his grave is to this day,” meaning the day those words were written. They clearly were written after Moses was buried. It would be strange to say that Moses himself, even speaking as a prophet, said while alive that his grave had not been found up to that day. Someone might argue that only the last chapter, and not the rest of the Pentateuch, was written by another person. But consider Genesis, Chap. 12. Ver. 6: “Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem, to the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanite was then in the land.” This must have been written by someone living after the Canaanite was no longer in the land, not by Moses, who died before entering it. Also, at Numbers 21. Ver. 14. the writer cites an older book, The Book of the Wars of the Lord. It recorded Moses's actions at the Red Sea and the brook of Arnon. There is therefore enough evidence that the five Books of Moses were written after his lifetime, though it is less clear how much later.

Moses did not put those books together in their entirety as we now have them. Still, he wrote everything they say he wrote. An example is the volume of the Law, apparently contained in Deuteronomy from chapter 11 through chapter 27. The Israelites were also ordered to write it on stones when they entered Canaan. (Deut. 31. 9) Moses himself wrote it and gave it to Israel's priests and elders, to be read to all Israel every seventh year when they gathered for the feast of Tabernacles. It is the Law that God commanded their Kings, once that form of government was established, to copy from the priests and Levites and place beside the Ark. (Deut. 31. 26) After it was lost, Hilkiah found it again much later and sent it to King Josias. Josias had it read to the people and renewed the Covenant between them and God. (2 King. 22. 8 & 23. 1,2,3)

Many passages in the Book of Joshua suggest it too was written long after Joshua lived. Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan to mark the Israelites' crossing. (Josh 4. 9) The writer says, “They are there to this day.” (Josh 5. 9) “To this day” indicates a time in the past beyond living memory. Likewise, after the Lord said he had removed the people's disgrace from Egypt, the writer says, “The place is called Gilgal to this day.” That would have been an odd thing to say in Joshua's own lifetime. The writer also says the name of the Valley of Achor, named for the trouble Achan caused in the camp, “remains to this day.” (Josh. 7. 26) That too must have been written long after Joshua. Many other passages give the same kind of evidence: Josh. 8. 29. 13. 13. 14. 14. 15. 63.

Similar evidence makes the same point about the Book of Judges, chap. 1. 21,26 6.24 10.4 15.19 17.6 and Ruth 1. 1. The strongest example is Judg. 18. 30. It says Jonathan “and his sons were priests to the Tribe of Dan until the day the land was taken captive.”

There is similar evidence that the Books of Samuel were written after Samuel lived: 1 Sam. 5.5. 7.13,15. 27.6. & 30.25. After David awarded an equal share of the spoils to those guarding the supplies and those fighting, the writer says, “He made it a statute and a rule for Israel to this day.” (2. Sam. 6.4.) Also, after the Lord killed Uzzah for reaching out to steady the Ark, David was upset and named the place Perez-Uzzah. The writer says it bears that name “to this day.” That book must therefore have been written long after these events and long after David's lifetime.

Consider the two Books of the Kings and the two Books of the Chronicles. Many passages mention monuments that the writer says still existed in his day: 1 Kings 9.13. 9.21. 10. 12. 12.19. 2 Kings 2.22. 8.22. 10.27. 14.7. 16.6. 17.23. 17.34. 17.41. 1 Chron. 4.41. 5.26. Their histories also continue through the captivity in Babylon. That alone proves they were written after it. Events recorded in a register always happen before the books that mention and cite it. These books repeatedly refer readers to the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, the books of the prophet Samuel, the prophet Nathan, and the prophet Ahijah, the Vision of Jehdo, and the books of the prophet Serveiah and the prophet Addo.

The Books of Esdras and Nehemiah were certainly written after the people returned from captivity. They describe that return, the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls and houses, the renewal of the Covenant, and the establishment of their government.

Queen Esther's story takes place during the Captivity. Its writer must therefore have lived then or later.

The Book of Job offers no clue to when it was written. There is ample evidence (Exekiel 14.14, and James 5.11.) that Job was a real person. But the book itself seems less a history than a work on a question much debated in ancient times: “Why do wicked people often prosper in this world while good people suffer?” This seems especially likely because, as St. Jerome says, the Hebrew is prose from the beginning through the third verse of the third chapter, where Job's complaint starts. From there through the sixth verse of the last chapter it is written in hexameter verse, and the rest of that chapter is prose again. The whole debate is thus in verse, with prose added as a preface and an epilogue. Verse is not the usual way for someone in great pain like Job, or friends who come to comfort him, to speak. But in ancient philosophy, especially moral philosophy, it was common.

David wrote most of the Psalms for use by the choir. Some songs by Moses and other holy men were added. Some Psalms, including the 137. and the 126., date from after the return from captivity. The Psalter must therefore have been collected and arranged in its present form after the Jews returned from Babylon.

The Proverbs collect wise and godly sayings. Some are Solomon's, some Agur son of Jakeh's, and some the mother of King Lemuel's. It is no more reasonable to think Solomon collected them than to think Agur or Lemues's mother did. Although these people supplied the sayings, some other godly person living after all of them gathered them into a single book.

The Books of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles contain nothing that was not Solomon's, apart from possibly their titles. “The Words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King in Jerusalem” and “the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's” seem to have been added to distinguish the books when the books of Scripture were gathered into one body of Law. That way both the teachings and their authors would be known.