Difference between revisions of "Council of Jamnia"

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The Council of Jamnia, A.D. 90 is an hypothetical council of chief Jewish rabbis which is said to have met by permission of the Roman authorities at the school established at Yabneh (Jabneh or Jamnia) in Palestine after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in A.D. 70, as an authoritative council of Judaism to decisively determine the canon of the Bible, and officially exclude the Septuagint. Evidence has proven that no such council ever met, and the claim has been largely discredited.

The idea of the Council of Jamnia was first introduced by Heinrich Graetz in 1871. Several important ancient sources (Josephus, Against Apion 1:8; 4 Ezra 14:44-45, Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra 14b and others) indicate that a generally accepted list of sacred writings already existed in the days of Jamnia. The sages at Jamnia in their discussions and disputations explored the merits of Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Proverbs and Ezekiel. In rabbinic discussions on the topic of authority of books, phrases such as “on that day” created an impression that this was a deliberation that took place during a single session (Mishna, Yadaim 3:5-4:4 and Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 28a), thus creating the idea of The Council of Jamnia as authoritative as the former Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Many scholars assumed that since Christians had the Nicean and Chalcedonian ecumenical councils to settle and establish doctrinal matters, a similar council took place in Jamnia at the turn of the first century, and Graetz’s theory became the widely accepted view. It was adopted as evidence in Protestant apologetics against acceptance of books in the Catholic canon of the Bible rejected as apocryphal by the Reformation. Since the late nineteenth century, many scholars have believed that a religious council convened in Jamnia in approximately A.D. 90, and by their rabbinical authority closed the limits of what eventually became the Jewish canon. However, an examination of the actual sources shows that there is no evidence that their inquiries into selected teachings, contained within those books, should be seen as an attempt to settle the status of those books. Since the 1960s, Graetz’s theory has been questioned, and is largely discredited. (Jack P. Lewis, Lee M. McDonald, James A. Sanders and Sid Z. Leiman and others). Today modern scholars are skeptical as to whether there was ever a synod in Jamnia dedicated specifically to matters of canonization.

Many Protestant authors have appealed to the Council of Jamnia in arguing the case against the Roman Catholic canon.

Jimmy Swaggart, Catholicism & Christianity, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 1986
Norman Geisler, Ralph MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, Baker Books, 1995
Norman Geisler, General Introduction to the Bible, Moody Press, 1996
Ralph P. Martin, Peter H. Davids, eds., Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, InterVarsity Press, 2000

Other Protestant authors dismiss this appeal to a rabbinical council at Jabneh or Jamnia as unnecessary, given the evidence of a settled canon of the Old Testament predating the Christian Era by approximately 200 years. Still others point to evidence that there was a variety of different Jewish canons of scripture as late as A.D. 500.

Bible students who have carefully researched the documented Jewish sources have found no substantiating support for an authoritative Jewish Council of Jamnia that settled the Old Testament of canon of scripture as authoritative evidence against the establishment of the Orthodox and Catholic canon of the Bible.