The International Writers Magazine: Thesis: History of the Creation of the Bible

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Lost Books of the Bible, and What They Tell About Biblical Process • G David Schwartz I would like to begin by citing a passage from the Book of Jashur. I would like to begin with such a reading, but I can't. The book no longer exists.

Even though Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18 tell us not simply that the Book of Jashur once existed, but can be referred to, we cannot refer to the book. Not only are we missing the well attested Book of Jashur, which was promoted as evidence for what the authors of the books of Joshua and Samuel were telling us, but according to Numbers 21:14 we are missing a quasi-biblical text called The Book of the Wars of the Lord? The Book of the Wars of the Lord may have been as ancient, and as revered, as the Five Books of Moses we currently possess. But matters do not stop there. According to Exodus 24:7, a book which is in the process of telling the story of the Exodus, we are told in passing that Moses took out a Book of the Covenant he had written down while on the mountain. When our current book of Exodus speaks about a Book of the Covenant, it cannot be referring to Exodus as the Book of the Covenant, but is referring to a different, authoritative work, called the Book of the Covenant. This Book of the Covenant, plus the Book of the Wars of the Lord suggest there were at one point six, or maybe seven original "books of Moses." When the Book of Jashur is added to the equation, it seems to suggest two "books of Moses" and at least one ancient prophetic book is no longer in existence.

Nor are these the only texts, which our current Bible tells us were once available for reference on some point or another.
• 1 Kings 11:41 refer to the Annals of Solomon.
• 1 Kings 14:19 refers to the annals of the Kings of Israel
• 1 Kings 14:29 refers to the annals of the Kings of Judah. II Chronicles, which is, of course, a reinterpretation of 2 Kings, tells about the annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah, as if the two histories were a single book. Nor does it seem the Chronicler is referring to I and II Kings which is being paraphrased. We are also told about the Histories of Jehu ben Hanai (2 Chron. 20:34). Insofar as these are history books, and perhaps records of kingdoms which had been destroyed, we might initially assume the books were destroyed in the process as well. The Chronicler does, however, refer to the many oracles recorded in the annals of the kings (2 Chronicles 24:27). The ancients were not paleontologists or anthropologists, and had little concern to preserve the relics of another, apparently dead, civilization.

This pragmatic thesis does not, however, explain why we do have the Books of Exodus, Numbers and 2 Chronicles, which would have been stored on the same metaphorical shelf as the lost books. Nor does it adequate suggest, having preserved and canonizing what we now recognize as the Bible including the minor prophets who are not attested as prophetic books in other parts of Tanach, why we have lost the prophetic trilogy of Nathan, Abijah the Shilonite, Jedo, according to 2 Chronicles 9:29, and, according to 1 Chronicles 29:29, the Book of Gad the seer. First and Second Chronicles tells us that there are more to the stories of David and Solomon, and these additional stories can be found in two named history books and four named prophets. But we cannot find them because we cannot find the books mentioned.
Ironically, after naming between 6 to 8 books we no longer have, the Chronicler tells the story of Hilkiah discovering the Book of the Laws of the Lord (2 Chron 4:14ff). While it may be the case that this is a reference to Exodus or Leviticus or Numbers or Deuteronomy, it is clearly the case that the discovered book was not called by any of those traditional names. Something seems odd. We lose between six and eight books but suddenly have a new book we have apparently never heard of before now.

Although I have portrayed the situation as something unique and exceedingly odd, it is not. We do have a recorded, documented history of texts which were regarded as holy and distinct by some sects which were later jettisoned either by themselves or their rivals. Dozens of works which have a distinctive apocalyptic texture to them, and which had at one time been adopted or written by the Pharisees or their forerunners, is collected as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.1 Some of these Apocryphal texts had been preserved in the Septuagint which was adopted by early Christian sects. Other Apocrypha, together with a collection scholars call Pseudepigrapha, such as the Assumption of Moses, the Martyrdom of Isaiah, were preserved by neither Christians nor Jews. Scholars have preserved them.
We do have information on the canonical process in Judaism and Christianity but, with very little exception, we do not have a discussion of what books were excluded or why. We do have a discussion in Judaism of what books were included in the canon which, according to some sages, should have been excluded. These included the Book of Esther, Lamentations, and Song of Songs. We also know that the very first canon in Christianity consisted of a truncated version of Luke, and eleven letters of Paul. The very first collection by Marcon, since repudiated, jettisoned all of Torah when his New Testament was assembled. When we later hear of canonical debates within Christian circles, the canon they adopt, after hundreds of years of debate, included the surprisingly rabbinic like "Old Testament." Just as surprising, the Apocryphal texts which were admitted into the Christian canon were just those books the rabbis had validated in the Septuagint, but had not accepted into the Jewish canon. Coincidentally, again, when the Reformation decided to jettison the texts they did not regard as holy, they rejected Apocrypha books and wound up with a canon, which was even more like the rabbinic canon.
Nevertheless, the existence of a variety of Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, preserved in several languages and numerous versions, indicates a fulcrum of experience developing towards a particularly expectant period. The writings which were eventually accepted into the New Testament, in comparison with the numerous gospels which were disqualified from speaking to members of the Church, 2 were distinctly "combative." Paul, for example, like Jesus portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels, was in the thick of it in a manner neither Jesus, nor any other personage was in, for example, the Gospel of Thomas, or any of a dozen other gospels and letter, apocalypses and narratives. Meditation was not the guiding principle, but portraying the necessity of fighting for the new viewpoint, or "truth."

The assumption of an affinity of choosing images "in the thick of it" rather than heuristic narratives seem to speak to the issue of the fulcrum of experience. In this regard, the discussion of the sages concerning whether or not the Book of Esther, Lamentations, and Song of Songs were viable for the Jewish canon takes on a more meaningful hue than discussing the fact that the name of God was not mentioned, or the burdensome and unmotivational nature, or the presumed secular nature of the questionable texts. The three books under discussion simply did not contribute to the war effort or, in terms which will be seen to be more consistent throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity, the survival effort. Canons were decided, and therefore must speak from, "the thick of it."

The existence of pseudepigrapha, authored in the names of know authorities who have been long dead, seems to indicate the willing susceptibility to new announcements from God. The willing susceptibility for new revelation seems sufficient to compensate for what would have been, by the time of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, a loosely defined canon and/or the sure knowledge that the new text was recently written; perhaps even a collective work. The only event, which brings about next texts, which are the least bit qualified for canonization, however (aside from being necessary for those sects which preach "publish or perish") is the requirement of new ways and means for an author and the people he or she represents to have new voices with which to express their survival interests.

Philip R. Davies notes that "canonizing is a process that involves all the stages from composition, editing, archiving (combining on a scroll) and collecting scrolls into larger units. There is no single canonical mechanism, nor 'trajectory.' There are only 'canonical processes...' "3 Davies' assessment will eventually help explain why we have lost texts. What Davis cannot explain is why, with the availability of so many apocryphal texts and pseudepigrapha works, the Jewish canon and the Christian canon have so loosely resembled one another.
What does seem to explain both the lost texts and the canonical process which was analogous in Judaism and Christianity, is that until a canon is actually designed, proposed, and enforced, we have communities of human beings attempting to read their concerns in terms of texts in the library, so to speak. The Alexandrian Library, which was supposedly the only library ever to have existed wherein any and everyone could have read their concerns, burned to the ground. Had there been a better system of fire safety, we may yet have had the Books of the Wars of the Lord, of the Covenant, of Nathan, Abijah the Shilonite, Jedo, Gad and the annals of the kings of both Israel and Judah and Israel and Judah ...To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "Oh, well."

So Jews and Christian, each seeking explanation both of and to themselves, preserved remarkable similar canons. To put this in other terms, the overriding concerns of contemporary problematics helped devise the texts which were, at any particular period in history, regarded as sacred and necessary to preserve, and those which were expendable. As noted above, the process of canonization involves design, proposition, and enforcement. At some point, a community of like-believers is told what books are authoritative because some authorities have found those books to best express their hopes and their understandings, and the particular history they have chosen as their own. It is an accident of history that the Chronicles were preserved and canonized with a radically different interpretation of history by than the books of I and II Kings it redesigned, repropositioned, and forced into new contexts. To a person for whom the Bible has been regarded as a text, which dropped whole from heaven, this must seem a horrible blasphemy. But were it not for the Chronicler, or more particularly for the peoples who preserved the Chronicles and placed them next to I and II Kings, we would not have so many contexts with which to investigate what is of utmost importance in the canonical process: how we regard ourselves in relationship with the transcendent.

It seems noteworthy that the earliest book we seemed to have lost was the Book of Wars. Of course, Wars of the Lord may have fallen into disfavor when the original sacredness attributed to the book (as suggested by its having been recommended in Torah) ceased to speak to the people. The title may denote a pre-Mosaic text, which did not narrate the Exodus, or concerned itself with events before Israel was confederated or released from slavery. If so, the neglect shown the Wars of the Lord may have been due to the sacrality shown to the Exodus, and especially Moses part in the Exodus. This speculation does not, of course, explain the loss of The Book of the Covenant, for example. It seems interesting, however, that the Five Books we do possess each seem to have an emphasis on the Exodus and, furthermore, each carry an imprimatur that those texts be respect, neither added to nor subtracted from, and otherwise valued. In other words, holy texts began to be codified not simply in terms of experience, but in response to just such questions as: Whatever happened to the Book of Jashur. What seems odd in view of the existence of numerous pseudepigrapha that a Book of Jashur, or the prophecies of Jedo, Nathan, and so on, did not seem to have been invented?

In Jewish sources, in fact, there is no discussion of these named and lost texts. Apparently Jews have long been concerned to discuss not what we have lost but what we have gained (which, since Shoah, has been reduced to what we have not lost, or what we have survived). It is as if, in the traditions, we have not lost texts but found voice. Only two times do we note anything resembling a discussion of the canonical process in Judaism. The first occurs in the Bible, with Ezra's Reconstructionist movement with the returning exiles. The only other time we hear about conical debates in Judaism, it involves Rabbi Akiva and his associates, and immediate precedes, possible runs through, the war with Rome. Like the very efforts, which would have gone into the making of texts, and then would have gone into the accepting of texts as holy to some people, new decisions on viable texts were discussed during the exuberance of rebuilding the community of the exiles, and during the time of fortifying the combatants with Rome.

The canonical process is a process of deciding what speaks to us, through which texts the Holy One is voiced. The decision of what to write, like the decision of what to read and what to accept as sacred text, is the concern for survival. The earliest approach to Torah, indeed, the most essential and commonest approach, is interpretive. Midrash ('interpretation') preceded Halacha (literally, 'they way,' but denoting the decisions of case-law) and, to a very large extent, determined the perspective of "the law." The first concern of any reading, even the reading, which consciously frames itself as a discovery of what the text says in and of itself, is interpretive. Fundamentally, a holy text will say what a reader needs it to say in the reader's time and the reader's place, otherwise it is quite simply not holy. A text does not cite laws as dictum; communities already have laws in place. A text cites meaning, even meanings which will modify the laws and behavior of a community of readers.

Once holy texts become canonized, that is, once holy texts are determined to be holy by the decisive community, the implicit search for meaning on the basis of contemporary readings becomes even more substantial. Once canonized, a text cannot be discounted or lost. It is sanctified, cherished, hidden away, duplicated, and so on. What has to be done from canonization onward is read the text to have it say new things if it is to speak to contemporary communities. Maurice Merleau-Ponty once said "the child wants conclusions without having lived the premises." 4 Every mature religious community has read holy text as a book of premises. As suggested above, holy texts are holy because they premise our contemporary and future behaviors through newly developed insights.

Communities, through the insights of lone geniuses as well as the discussions of common folk, and the influence each will have on one another, typically search holy texts so that the texts explain their lives; that is, remain holy. Experience does not simply determine how I/we read texts; experience determines whether a text is holy and to be cherished because it cherishes us and preserves us. If the text does not do so, it is discarded. A holy text, in other words, a text from God, is one that says much more than it says because it was written "then," but speaks "now." Historically, dozens upon dozens of communities have investigated the Bible to determine what it means "for them." The language we have to use to convey the reading of Torah or Old Testament can precede neither without the "for them" nor the "determine." Every community does what Jews have called drash ('expose'), their way through the texts until the texts are again "received," as on Sinai.
The history of worship, of liturgy, of religious meditation and theology, is built on the ebb and flow of the skills and abilities which rame contemporary perspectives and needs to better express three things:
1. The ultimate ground of being;
2. Our social interrelationship;
3. Our innermost humanity in terms of bodily needs, psychological make-up, and spiritual attunement.

In the process, the very process of ever increasing narratives, which better express our concerns and our relationships, we choose what we regard as holy or sacred or profound. We do rarely, once we achieve the age of thought, which is analogous with and coherent with the age of confident faith, accept the conclusions, which have been compiled for us. Part of the reason this is so, of course, is that history brings with it new inventions, new discoveries, new concerns which have not been addressed by our forefathers and foremothers.
If our text is holy, however, if it speaks to us, then we will certainly drash our way through until we know who we are, where we stand in the world, and whether or not God stands with us. Every community which has ever turned to a similar text as another community has somehow concluded that The Bible as a whole, or a particular text, or a chapter, or a verse, or a fragment of a verse, can be read differently than a dozen other reading communities, and yet spell out what I/we believe, how I/we stand in relationship with everyone else, and whether or not od stands with me/us. Not surprisingly, every community of readers determines that God is indeed with them.

In the West, we have chosen Torah, Testament and Qur'an as holy, sacred, and profound. In the process of diverse interpretations of each of these divine texts, we have determined that they determine us. In determining these particular texts as holy, we have determined that previous and competing texts are either unholy or not holy. We have reached the age of maturity where we should be able to see that precisely because we do not accept conclusions but live premises, the lived premises of other communities, of other people of the books, is fundamental proof that my texts/ my interpretations are holy and justified because they are determinative not because of what others do or do not do, but by my/our response through the maelstrom of possibilities A principle of Western religious thought in general is that, no matter what the appearances are, we have always gained more than we have lost. This principle applies even in a discussion of textual transmission and textual loss. We have lost texts. We have gained in quality and insight.

We explain our insights in terms of what is best for our children and us. We are concerned, in other words, not simply with survival, but development as critical, insightful, advances. Advancement requires a community of voices that not simply accept my viewpoint, but criticize it. Advancement, based on discussions and debate, derives from and contributes to rational, creative activity.
We should not be surprised when our children reject our perspectives.

Ultimately, we are concerned not to lose our children. But it is not my perspectives that I most intimately want them to adopt. What I deeply desire is that they accept relationship with me. I am concerned with quality more than absolutes. In terms of the ultimate relationship, we no doubt meet the absolute in the quality of the interpretations we devise. But quality is not simply accepting the conclusions, which have been passed on to us. Quality, and therefore a better look at the absolute I wish not simply to comprehend but relate with, is discovered and advanced through applying my will to survive among differences, my concern to relate beyond survival.
Texts are premises. Insights, new and improved applications, more comprehensible narratives based on the holy narrative, compassion above and beyond agendas is the primary means by which texts become sacred. Only I/we can contribute to the process of accepting a text as holy.
• Footnotes:
1. Charles, R. H. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, Vols. I and II. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1973.
2. See, for example, the gospels and apocalyptic texts presented in James M. Robinson's The Nag Hammadi Library. San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishing, 1981.
3. Davies, Philip R. "Loose Canons: Reflections on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible," The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, #5: http://www.ualberta.ca/ARTS/JHS/Articles/article5.htm.
4. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Prose of the World, Evanston: Northwestern University
© G David Schwatz -May 18th 2004
email: DavidSchwartzG@aol.com
Schwartz is the former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal Dialogue, and coauthor, with Jacqueline Winston, of Parables In Black and White. Currently a volunteer at Drake Hospital in Cincinnati, Schwartz continues to write.

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