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Protestants affirm a shorter Old Testament canon for multiple historical reasons. I've already talked about in other videos Josephus, the great 1st century Jewish historian, and his testimony about the Jewish canon. I've also addressed Jerome, arguably the greatest biblical scholar in the early church, in multiple videos on him. And I've talked in those videos about other church fathers like Athanasius. Today. I want to look at the earliest surviving canon list in all church history goes all the way back to the second century, coming from Melito of Sardis, a highly respected Christian leader writing sometime around 170 A.D. melito's list of Old Testament books is preserved by Eusebius, the great historian in the early church, and it aligns closely, though probably not exactly, with the Protestant Old Testament canon. There are two wrinkles to that we'll work through in this video. First, the possible exclusion of Esther, and second, some ambiguity in what he means by wisdom. Nonetheless, Melito's list certainly Lacks Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd, Maccabees, Sirach, Baruch, the letter of Jeremiah, and the additional material in Daniel and Esther. And for this reason, some people try to argue that, well, Melito is just describing the Jewish canon here, not a Christian canon. At the end of the video, we'll work through that and show why that does not work. But let's start with the text itself, preserved for us by Eusebius, and then I'll clarify some of these terms after we've read it through. Quote accordingly, when I that's Melito went east and came to the place where these things were preached and done. That's probably Jerusalem. By the way, we'll talk about that. I learned accurately the books of the Old Testament and send them to you as written below. Their names are as of Moses, five books, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Jesus nave, Judges, Ruth of Kings, 4 Books of Chronicles, 2 the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom also Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job of prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah of the 12 prophets, one book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras. Okay, let's start with five clarifications that are easier than the two that are more difficult. Number one, Jesus nave means Joshua. It's just the book of Joshua. Jesus, another form of the same name for Joshua and nave, an older way of rendering none. And you end. So That's Joshua, the sixth book in our Bible today. Second clarification, when he says of Kings four books, that refers to what we call 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. In some ancient reckonings, these were grouped Together as four books of kingdoms or Kings. Of course, right after that, Chronicles, comma, two just means first and second Chronicles. I told you these first ones are easy. But just to be totally crystal clear, third clarification, the 12 books, one prophet means the minor prophets from Hosea through Malachi. These were often reckoned together. Can you name them all? Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. It's like you're thankful when you're later in life for these things you learn in Sunday school, right? Habakkuk is my favorite. I want to do a video on Habakkuk sometime. Fourth clarification, you see that last term, Esdras, in this context, that is usually taken to mean Ezra, Nehemiah, those two books in our Bibles today, these were often reckoned together as one book in Jewish and early Christian lists. That is not totally beyond all dispute. Esdras gets complicated in some Greek traditions, but that is the pretty standard interpretation of Melito's list here. Fifth clarification, you will notice Lamentations. The book of Lamentations is not mentioned, but that's not too surprising. It's likely coupled with Jeremiah here, which is listed, that was also common in ancient lists. So with those five clarifications in place, other than issues of order like Leviticus and numbers being switched around, you basically have the Protestant canon and the modern Jewish rabbinical canon with two little wrinkles. Number one, there's no Esther. And some try to argue that that omission is an accident. Or some have even proposed, though this is very speculative and less likely that it would be included with Esdras, possibly there. So I don't really have fine grained opinion on all these questions. This is not really my main area of scholarship myself. So I'm just trying to report the scholarship on any fine grained, difficult point. We'll simply leave it open in this video to try to give you the main conclusions. But I think we can say it's probably more common to see the book of Esther simply as excluded in this list. So that's interesting. Esther has a curious reception history. You may recall that Athanasius also omitted Esther in his canon list in his famous letter, and Gregory of Nazianzus does so as well. Amphilochius talked about how Esther is disputed. He said some add Esther. The second wrinkle we want to work through here is the term wisdom. And this is debated whether this refers to the wisdom of Solomon, which is also called the Book of Wisdom, which Roman Catholics include in the Deutero canon and some other groups as well. Or is this simply another way of referring to the Solomonic Wisdom literature connected with Proverbs? That ambiguity is one of the main interpretive issues in Melito's list. So let's address this a little bit and then we'll talk about the significance of Melito's testimony as a whole. Perhaps the strongest and most intuitive argument that wisdom here simply refers to the wisdom of Solomon or the Book of Wisdom, is that it is listed separately from Proverbs. You can see on screen, it's right after you got a comma and then it says Wisdom also. So on the surface, it sounds pretty plausible to say, you know, two separate references, two separate books, right? On the other hand, there are many scholars who think wisdom means the Book of Proverbs or Solomonic Wisdom literature more generally. And there are several reasons why typically, though the more common though is just it's another term for the Book of Proverbs. That's what a lot of people think. First of all, nowhere else in this list do we have the other deuterocanonical books. So if he meant the Wisdom of Solomon, this would be the only deuterocanonical book which is a little bit eccentric, but more basically. And the stronger argument here is that early lists sometimes do repeat or vary titles like this. And Proverbs was sometimes simply called Wisdom. The book we call Proverbs was sometimes just called Wisdom. In fact, Eusebius writes just early, earlier in his Ecclesiastical History from what we're quoting in this video, just a little bit earlier that Hegesippus and Irenaeus and others who lived around the same time as Melito call Proverbs by the title Wisdom, as you can see on screen here. Furthermore, when Rufinus translated Eusebius Ecclesiastical History into Latin, he translated it as Solomonis Proverbia, the Proverbs of Solomon Quae et Sapientia, which are also wisdom. This indicates that for Rufinus, he thinks Eusebius is giving two different names for one and the same work. Now, for more on that, see this newer and authoritative book by John Mead and Ed Gallagher, published by Oxford University Press in 2017. Great book on this whole topic. I'll put a link to it in the video description. And they have discussion on this that goes into a little more detail and technicality than is probably fitting for a YouTube video. They discuss the Greek grammar here in Eusebius text, and basically they're arguing this may support this reading of two terms for one in the same book, because the Greek term sometimes translated as also might actually be better translated as or. Or even as the relative pronoun as Rufinus takes it all. That's a little, you know, but that's not decisive for anything. So I just want you to be aware of that. We're going to leave that matter open again in this video. Try to only close the loop on things that are relatively secure. The contested issues I'll just try to make you aware of, though I will note that among older scholars, it's much more common to say that this is simply another term for Proverbs. Way back in the 19th century at Princeton, you can find Archibald Alexander making the claim that nearly all commentators have been of that opinion. But again, today, this is much more disputed. I don't really know enough to have 100% certainty on this myself or the issue with Esther. So I just want to report to you, these are the wrinkles, right? But here's the thing. We can simply leave this question open of what does Melito mean by wisdom and say, well, we are not 100% sure about that. I think we can say, certainly, though, the most probable outcomes are one of these two Number one, you have the Protestant canon minus Esther, or number two option, you have the Protestant canon minus Esther, plus the Book of Wisdom. Either way, it's very close to the Protestant canon. And it raises the question, if the Old Testament is used by Jesus and the apostles, and the earliest Christians included the deuterocanonical books, why are they excluded here? Either entirely excluded or almost entirely, depending on how you take wisdom. And it's hard to overstate the significance of this point because Melito is not a minor figure in the early church, he's been somewhat subsequently overlooked because so many of his works have been lost. But he was highly respected in his own day. Late second century there was. And Melito is so early, he's writing very early, before the later canon debates. Some have argued that Melito may have personally known figures like Polycarp, who was a direct disciple of John, though that is not 100% certain. Nonetheless, Melito's testimony comes very close to the time of the apostles. The reason it's significant that the earliest surviving canon list in all church history is strikingly close to the Protestant canon is because the most important consideration in this dispute is simply what canon did Jesus and the apostles use? And so testimony that comes so close to their time is significant. Now, although the testimony of Melito does not settle everything, you know. So the answer to the text in the thumbnail, does this settle? I wouldn't say it settles it, but I would say it significantly moves the needle, especially when you combine it with the other historical testimonies like Jerome, like the Bryonyos list. I'll do another video on that sometime, Lord willing. And then internal considerations in the text themselves. For example, in the prologue to Sirach, which contains an early tripartite description of the Hebrew Scriptures, as you can see on screen. And this is likely the tripartite division that Jesus is also referencing in Luke 24:44 under the term the law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. You see those three terms there. In its footnote dealing with Luke 24:44, the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible notes Moses, Prophets, Psalms reflects a classical division of the Old Testament into three parts. The third division is sometimes called the writings or the other books, as in the prologue to the Book of Sirach. So putting Melito into coordination with other points of historical data yields very important testimony in favor of the shorter Old Testament canon. However, let's deal with one objection that is common and target this for the remainder of this video. Is Melito just describing the Jewish canon rather than the Christian canon? And this is sometimes maintained because Melito references going east to learn of these books. And this is taken as a reference to going to Jerusalem to learn from Jewish sources. And therefore it is claimed he's just describing the Jewish canon. Now, there are two problems with this. First, it's disputed whether Melito is simply pursuing Jewish sources and what exactly that means, and I'll talk about that. But second, more importantly, in any event, he frames his list as a Christian Old Testament. And I want to explain this point by quoting a little bit of scholarship here. The reason I quote scholarship is not because scholarship is infallible or because they're all in agreement on this topic. Nonetheless, I will do so because oftentimes I'll offer fairly basic standard observations and then this will be portrayed as suspicious and sneaky. But I just want to show this is not Protestant special pleading. This is very standard and I'm trying to reduce. I'm constantly trying to reduce the disconnect between the scholarship and popular level discourse, just at least that we are aware of what is common and standard. So the OUP Oxford University Press book by Mead and Gallagher that I referenced earlier puts it like this quote. Melito does not inform us of the sources of his canon, whether Jews or Christians. Some scholars have pointed out that had Melito wanted to ask Jews about their canon, he could have done so in his native Sardis, where a large Jewish community flourished. They give several examples of scholars who argue for that. And they continue. Moreover, it seems likely that Melito would have sought out a Christian source to inform him of the books of the Old Testament rather than a Jewish source. Now what they do then is they discuss one effort to claim that Melito's canon is just the Jewish canon. And one of the points they make is that that runs contrary to Eusebius whole usage of Melito. Eusebius clearly does not share this interpretation of Melito's intentions, since he introduces Melito's preface by stating that it contains a list of the recognized books of the Old Testament. And what they're talking about there, Mead and Gallagher are referencing, is how Eusebius introduces Melito. And you can see here the reference to the acknowledged books of the Old Testament. That's Melit. That's Eusebius understanding of the significance of Melito's testimony. So if this is just a Jewish canon, that is totally lost on Eusebius, this great historian of the early church. Not only that, Melito himself makes comments that are suggestive that he understands this to be a Christian Old Testament. Remember that Melito was a Christian bishop writing to another Christian. He's writing a letter to Onesimus, another Christian leader, when he gives this list of the Old Testament books. And he describes this as concerning our entire faith. And then he's responding to this specific request from Onesimus for an accurate statement of the number and order of the ancient books. A merely Jewish canon would not address Onesimus pastoral need here. And Melito himself calls these books the Old Testament or Old Covenant. I think if I recall, he may be the first Christian who uses that language for the Old Testament books. And this is explicitly Christian language. You can see where he uses this terminology on screen here. I'm putting up all. For those on the podcast, I'm putting up all these passages on screen on the YouTube video. But this is significant obviously, because Jews wouldn't describe their own scriptures as the Old Testament. That's a category that only make sense in relation to the Christian claim of a New Testament. So even if Melito is investigating Jewish sources, he is doing so for the purpose of establishing books that belong to what he calls the Old Testament, which is a Christian category. And that is why in the scholarship on this point, Melito's list is routinely referred to as the earliest Christian canon and the earliest surviving Christian list of Old Testament. Books in chapter eight of the Books and the Parchments. F.F. bruce calls this list the earliest dateable Christian list of Old Testament books. Here's the older Protestant historian Philip Schaff calling it the first Christian list of the Hebrew Scriptures. This is common. It's commonly recognized that Melito's interest is in a Christian canon, even if he's drawing from Jewish sources to that end. Moreover, there are also scholars who conclude that Melito isn't looking at the Jewish canon specifically. He's going to Christians in Palestine and specifically Jerusalem for the Christian canon. So again, there's two problems here. Even if Melito is drawing from Jewish sources, that doesn't mean he's not interested in the Christian canon, which is how he frames his conclusion. But also, lots of people do argue that he actually is going to Christians, potentially Jewish Christians in and around Jerusalem. Let me read to you again, because everything I'm saying here, I'm trying to report sort of what's common in the scholarship. Let me read a longer passage from Chapter 5 of Roger Beckwith's book, the Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and its Background in Early Judaism. That's the title of the book. This will give you a flavor of the argumentation here. It will appear from the following chapter that if Melito had been acquainted with the Jewish numeration of the books as 22, which some suppose him to have been, he would not have mentioned Ruth separately from Judges. On the other hand, if he had been acquainted with the alternative Jewish numeration of the books as 24, he would not only have mentioned Ruth as a separate book, but also Lamentations. It seems, therefore, that he was acquainted with neither numeration, and this is confirmed by his division of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, each into two books. What, then, was the source of Melito's information? He does not claim to have obtained it from the Jews, only from the Holy Land, and the likelihood is that he obtained it from the Church of Syria. Syria in the broad sense, including Palestine. In this region, where Jews were numerous and where dialects of Aramaic were spoken as well as Greek, the Church had an exceptional knowledge of Jewish tradition. However, the Church here was often in controversy with the Jews, and in some matters it treated their tradition with considerable freedom. Nearly all the features of Melito's canon can be seen in later Syrian lists as well as in certain other Christian sources. Further confirmation of the Christian origin of Melito's list may be found in the fact that doubt about the Old Testament canon was on the increase among Christians in the latter part of the second century, due especially to the breach with Jewish tradition and the growing popularity of apocryphal books. Whereas doubt had at this date been almost entirely laid to rest among the Jews. If Melito had wished to console Jews, he need only have consulted the Jews of his own city, Sardis, where there was a prominent Jewish community to whom the canon was probably as well known as it was to the Jews of Palestine. The reason why he looked to Palestine must surely be that he wished to consult Christians and finding uncertainty and difference of opinion among Christians nearer home. And he decided to refer his question to the mother churches of Christendom in the land from which the Gospel had first gone out there. So he considered lay the best hope of learning the primitive Christian canon. Bruce Metzger also regards Melito's list to come from Greek speaking Jewish Christians. As you can see on screen here. Sometimes it's argued that Melito would have been looking ultimately at Jewish sources, but in conversation with Christians in that region about the significance of that. Since the Church receives the Scriptures from God's revelation to Israel, the Jewish canon is not irrelevant background information. It's one source of information that helped the early Church to determine the canon. Here's how Gallagher puts it in another Melito fails to tell us whom he asked for this information, leaving scholars to guess whether he sought out Palestinian Jews or Palestinian Christians. Regardless, most scholars have been willing to attribute the list ultimately to Jewish sources. But know what he says next. It is likely that upon coming to the east, presumably on some official business, he would have questioned the local Christians rather than Jews. But the more intimate acquaintance of Eastern Christians with Jewish traditions would have assured him of obtaining what he considered the authentic canon. Hopefully you see the significance of what we're saying here. Even if he's looking at Jewish sources, he's doing so in dialogue with Christians as well, because his goal is to determine the Christian canon, and that's pretty commonly recognized. So, summing up, Melito is addressing confusion among Christians about the Old Testament books. And so he goes back to where Christianity began in and around Jerusalem to determine that question. Very unlikely that he's going to go there and only look at non Christian sources rather than considering both Jewish and Christian testimony. But even if he were, it would not take away from his clear presentation of these books as a Christian Old Testament, as also was understood by Eusebius. And again, the significance of this is that Melito is only a few generations removed from the apostles. Again, Polycarp dies around the middle of the second century. Melito is active in that region in Asia Minor right on the heels of that. This is within living memory of the apostles disciples. So does the testimony of Melito settle the canon question? No, it doesn't settle it fully, but it really moves the needle, especially in light of the fact that there's no counter testimonies of the alternative larger canon that are that early from that time period. And there's other supportive data as well. I mentioned the Bryonyas list, which may go back pretty early as well, and in my other videos I've covered Jerome and some of the other testimonies like that. So yes, Melito really moves the needle, and in favor of a shorter Old Testament canon that aligns with the Protestant recognition. Let me know in the comments if you want videos on the Bryonyos list. Thanks for watching. Let me know what you think in the comments.