Teaching Old Testament Survey this last year made me take a deep and deeply discomforting look at my beliefs about revelation, inspiration, and canonization. My journey into the topics actually began three years ago when I bravely endeavored a master's thesis on the topic, The Mother's of the Disciples. By the end, my topic was more closely, Mothers of the Gospel. One day, I will have both brains and guts to rewrite and publish it under that title. But in terms of inspiration and canonization, the Gospels and the New Testament are straightforward. They name as their sources real historical figures who we can place in historical time and space. We even have copies of the documents showing up within the century in which they claim to be written, nearby where we know their author to have been. It is immensely comforting that way.
Not so with the Old Testament. Even the parts of the Old Testament that look like they claim an author are--well--not necessarily by the author claimed. The Books of Moses: probably not by Moses. Isaiah, not probably written by Isaiah. The Proverbs of Solomon: collected several kings later. The Psalms of David: only half by David.
So what in the world does someone who believes in revelation do with this? I do really believe the Bible contains revelation in both the Old and New Testaments. In fact, if you believe the New Testament is reliable, you have to believe the Old Testament is reliable. You are logically obligated to this conclusion because the New Testament cites many portions and passages of the Old Testament as its source of authority.
But there are other books that the New Testament cites as well. Books we don't have.
And there are books the Old Testament cites as its sources of authority, books like "The Book of the Wars of the Lord" cited in Numbers 21: 14. The Book of Jeshurun, chronicles of various seers and prophets and kings, books that discuss angelic matters, books from which the proverbs of Solomon or the psalms of David were collected. There are all sorts of books--real, authoritative, inspired books; books with authority to be cited as sources of significance in which the readers of the Bible could find the historical and spiritual record of the events cited only in brief in the text we have inherited. But these books to which the authors refer were more important to the authors than their own work. The authors looked to the books they cited as their sources of history, of revelation, for discussion of angelic mysteries. If the author of Kings had thought that the book of Kings was all we would have, he would never have written it as he did. He did not believe himself to be the final word of God. He believed he was writing the things of God in a way that God would approve of. Did he think that two and a half, maybe three millenia later that would be all that remained as inspired canon? I doubt it.
Which is why I have reached the conclusion that we cannot deduce anything from what the Bible doesn't say. Frankly, we are missing pages of our Scriptures. The pages we are missing might very well have something to say on the topic. But we don't have those pages. It's not simply that those pages have been ignored for centuries or passed out of popularity around the time of Constantine. Some were, some did. But some passages were simply destroyed. Perhaps they were burned at the library of Alexandria, perhaps they passed out of mind when Baghdad was so badly ruined that blood ran ankle deep in the streets, when bishoprics sat empty or illiterate men held the office in cities hundreds of miles away passing the position down to their illegitimate sons. Perhaps some texts had passed out of existence a thousand years before, when the temple in Jerusalem was sacked and the gold carted off; or the other time, when it was burned and the gold melted down over the rocks, each turned and scrapped so that a soldier could bring home more booty. Did texts from the tent even make it into the temple? A tent doesn't provide much protection from the elements. They didn't have archival paper back then. Some texts would have been stored in jars, but even jars risk mildew. Some in chests, but even chests get termites. A few treasures, like the Ten Commandments perhaps, would have been preserved by being carved into stone. The other best way would be clay tablets. But we don't have clay tablets of the Pentateuch dating back to this time. It doesn't mean there weren't any, but we don't have them. It's a problem for anyone studying the Old Testament.
What is it that the Bible once said, that we don't have anymore? It would make a difference in how we discuss things. But I can't argue my points from what the Bible doesn't talk about. How did Deborah get to be recognized as a prophetess? I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. Perhaps she wrote a book that did say. I just don't have it. What was her role as a prophetess? Beyond the short snippy little descriptions of judging from under a tree (what?) and leading a single battle where someone else got the credit, I don't know. Perhaps she offered sacrifices: it doesn't say she didn't. Perhaps she only gave women marital advice, and the battle was the single exception. Who is to say? The Bible doesn't. Perhaps it once did. Perhaps we should listen for echoes of what it once said in the histories and traditions that have made their way down to us. But in the mean time, the conclusion to which OT studies led me most firmly is this: do not argue from what the Bible doesn't say. A great deal of what it did say was lost.
