WHAT AUDET SAID FIRST-CENTURY JEWS CONFESSED TO BE SCRIPTURE

In the Journal of Theological Studies, N.S., Vol. I, Pt. 2, October 1950 (pages 135-154), we find an article by Jean-Paul Audet, “A Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books of the Old Testament in Greek Transcription.” Audet presented several lines of argument for the conclusion that we have a list of OT books as accepted by mainstream Jewry of the first century, at the latest. Audet: “A [transcription into Greek characters of a] genuinely Hebrew and Aramaic list of the books of the OT is therefore what we have before us, preserved independently in . . . [an eleventh century manuscript numbered “54” in the Greek Patriarchate Library in Jerusalem, folio 76—hereinafter we will refer to it as Audet referred to it, namely, as “ the Jerusalem MS”—, where it is placed between the Second Epistle of Clement and the Didache], and embodied [also] in Epiphanius [(i.e. embodied in his De mens.)].”

The lists give us the same books, but the order in which the books are found in the lists differs. Audet continued, “Any suspicion that it [(—“it” meaning the list of names for the canon of the OT—)] might be a late and artificial compilation [created by Gentile Christians sometime after the first century] is dispelled, first because the Greek titles are in general agreement with the Hebrew or Aramaic titles, and secondly because the assignment of Hebrew or Aramaic titles throughout the list (especially in the Jerusalem MS.) shows no trace of subsequent borrowing from different sources. The list we have in the Jerusalem MS., apart from minor corruptions, is as it was drawn up.”

Audet also argued that the “Jerusalem MS” was not derived from Epiphanius’ De mens. He pointed out that “canonical lists, at the end of the fourth century, have a genre litteraire admitting of very little liberty in the ordering of the sacred books,” yet such an inexplicable anomaly would have been the case had the writer of the Jerusalem MS borrowed from Epiphanius’ list. Audet argued that there is “a remote common original source of both texts.” He argued this in part on the basis of the nature of the Aramaic orthography used in the lists and on the basis that there is an identity between the two lists as respects the several corruptions that exist in the transliteration of Hebrew or Aramaic titles of the OT books. Audet: “Thus it is likely that the nearest common ancestor of our texts [(the Jerusalem MS and the De mens.)] was already corrupt in a number of places . . . [so] that it must previously have had a relatively long history. [The] list in the De mens., in the order in which it exists, can only be derived from some recasting of the text preserved by the Jerusalem MS.” But how far back before the fourth century need we go before we come to a period of time that allowed the order of the books given in the Jerusalem MS? that allowed for the nature of the Aramaic and Hebrew orthographies that informs the lists—and that points us to a period of time a good deal earlier than Aquila’s day? that allowed Jews to place the book of Daniel with the Prophets instead of its being placed among the Hagiographa? that allowed for Aramaic titles among Hebrew titles—so impossible for a list that might have had an origin from within a later, Mishnaic rabbinate (second century)? Audet advanced several other lines of argument to the effect that the “indeterminate period lasting from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the first century furnishes the historical background which our list seems to require for its origin.”

Recalling that the scroll of Ezra incorporated Nehemiah, too, and that the scroll of Jeremiah incorporated Lamentations, we can account, by means of the titles given in the lists, for all thirty-nine books that inform the OT canon!

A spurious Esdras, however, is found in the lists! Audet argued that it owes its place in the lists because the lists’ common ancestor was formulated during a brief period of time following creation of the spurious Esdras, which was an Aramaic Targum based upon the targumist’s having abbreviated an original Hebrew Ezra-Nehemiah in order to make room for his spurious tale. A Greek translation of this spurious Targum did not long satisfy Palestinian scribes, who possessed the Hebrew Ezra-Nehemiah. A new, Greek version of the true Ezra-Nehemiah was made, and this gave impetus for the making of another Aramaic Targum of the Hebrew Ezra-Nehemiah. It is this second Targum of Esdras (Ezra-Nehemiah) that corresponds to the “second Esdras” in the list, and which corresponds to Esdras B in the LXX. Audet: “But all this history may well have been forgotten by Christians long before Origen. Knowing only of one Hebrew Esdras for two Greek Esdras, they could not conceive where the first Esdras emanated from. Jerome called it apocryphal: his view obtained.” So, if Audet’s work has not been overturned, then we have scholarly argument for the following conclusion: the fact that the lists give us a “First Esdras” is additional evidence of the antiquity for the lists’ common ancestor, which needs go back at least to the first century for when it was drawn up.