ESTHER: A CANONICAL AND TEXTUAL EXAMINATION (original) (raw)
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This paper explores the canonicity of the Book of Esther, addressing the historical debates surrounding its acceptance in Jewish and Christian traditions despite the absence of God's name within the text. Various perspectives on its significance, especially in relation to the celebration of Purim and its influence on Jewish identity, are examined, highlighting the reasons for Esther's continued place among the canonical texts of Scripture.
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To speak about the dynamics of canonization in Rabbinic Judaism and its literature-the topic of this essay-one must inevitably begin with the Hebrew Bible and the dynamics of its canonization. It is no exaggeration to say that the canonization of the Bible remains to this day one of the great literary mysteries of all time. How did a collection of initially separate documents become ta biblia, and then those books the Bible? It was believed by many scholars for a considerable period that the final closure of the Hebrew Bible was the product of a collective decision made by the Rabbis at a certain "Council ofjamnia," a synod held at the academy of Yavneh roughly around the year 90 C.E. where the Rabbis discussed the status of the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes under the rubric of the question as to whether or not these books "defile the hands" (metam'im et hayadayim), a code-word, supposedly, for possessing sacred, canonical status (M.Yadayim 3:5). This discussion was connected by scholars with other passages regarding "books that are to be hidden away" (.nignaz) (B.Shabbat 13b, 30b) and "outside books" (sefarim hitsonim) (M.Sanhedrin 10:1, B.Sanhédrin 28a). Taken together, these passages created a picture of a Rabbinic synod that was imagined to be comparable to the synod of Laodicea held in the middle of the 4 th C. that supposedly helped finalize the Christian canon. 1 The point of such a synod, it was assumed, was to rule that certain books were "in," and others "out." The process of canonization, in other words, was primarily one of définition by exclusion. The existence of such a council was essentially disproven in 1964
Topic: History of Interpretation of Hebrews and Canonicity
A Letter to the Hebrews is written under the circumstances of persecution and troubles in the early Christian community. The Letter tries to console and comfort with words of compassion and advised. For centuries, most interpreters assumed Paul was the author; once scholarship rejected that traditional identification, the anonymous author of Hebrew was essentially sidelined as eccentric and rarely included in discussions of profound early Christian voices. Thus, this paper mainly focuses on the history of interpretation and canonicity of Hebrews.
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