Meditations

Moody Radio openline on March 23, 2019:

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

We are talking about the old testament canon and I raised the issue of Yavneh, which is where Judaism reformed itself after the destruction of the temple, in the greek term it’s called Jamnia. Now, they have a role in determining the old testament canon, what was it?

Steven Sanchez:

Now, let’s say that it wasn’t. It wasn’t oh we got a lot of books laying around here, let’s pick a few and make a canon for ourselves.

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

Because there was already a canon …

Steven Sanchez:

They already knew what the canon was, so they are reaffirming, they are acknowledging, there are some questions at the margins, about the books that are difficult to interpret but that’s vastly different from saying let’s make a canon for ourselves and sanctify it as authoritative,

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

They already accepted the canon, we see it in the new testament,  Jesus already accepted the canon but they say well what about the song of Solomon, seems a little too sensual …

Dr Jim Coakley:

There was an ongoing discussion to see what are we going to do with this books, as Steve says, that are at the margin,  like …

Steve Sanchez:

Proverbs,  Ezekiel, Ester …

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

They think Proverbs could be illogical, why? Because one verse says answer a fool, another says don’t answer a fool instead of understanding it as wisdom,  so they are talking about that, they are talking is Ester a non spiritual book because God’s name is not mentioned,  they are talking about Ecclesiastes, it’s kind of skeptical in places,

Dr Jim Coakley:

So they are using his words as authoritative when it’s Solomon musing about life,

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

But the most influential Rabbi there, Rabbi Akiva, he kept insisting that yes these are words of God, he wasn’t saying we should include them, he was saying let’s not get rid of them, they are in the canon already.

Steven Sanchez:

That’s important. They all already know what’s in between the covers of the book.

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

I always think it’s important that we know when it comes to canon, what they are really doing is these new books were showing up, remember this is the years between 70 and 120 AD, new books are showing up, they are called the new testament, they actually allude to them, these Rabbis at Yavneh, they don’t like it. So they say these, not those, they don’t accept their authority because they are excluding the new testament from the canon. Their job is not to decide what the Hebrew canon is, what they want to is to exclude the new testament canon.