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[Noah]

Hello everyone,

I have read the whole Bible but I feel like I don't know much about any part I haven't read very recently. I want to do something to make it stick. Especially the OT history; I really struggle to keep stories separated in my mind or remember who did what. I know I don't have to know everyone but I should be able to tell you a gist of the good and bad guys in Judges or 2 Kings, for example.

I've been looking into memory methods like Memory Palace and loci. As much as I recognize the importance of memorizing scripture by scripture, I'd like to start out memorizing how the stories go. David did this here and then that here. Josiah was a good king and did this, while Ahab wasn't and did that.

[jimwalton]

Let me offer a few.

First breakdown: 1000 years

• Abraham 2000 BC
• David 1000 BC
• Jesus at 0.

Second breakdown: 400 yr groupings (roughly, not exactly, but just to help it make sense and stick)

• - Patriarchs (Abe, Isaac, Jake, Joseph): 400 yrs, roughly 2100-1700 BC.
• Israel in Egypt: 400 yrs. Roughly (who really knows) 1700-1300 BC.
• The time of the Judges (with overlaps): 400 yrs. Roughly 1400-1000 BC.
• The monarchy (all the kings of Israel and Judah): 400 yrs. Roughly 1050-586 BC.
• The time of the prophets (with overlaps): 400 yrs, roughly 850-450 BC.
• The time of silence: roughly 400 BC-0.

You can keep it straight by thinking in these 400-yr blocks.

Third breakdown: We can think of the books being about these 400-yr blocks.

• - Genesis is the first 400-yr period (the Patriarchs)
• Ex, Lev, Num, Dt after the 2nd 400-yr period (their time in Egypt and the wilderness)
• Joshua, Judges, Ruth during the 3rd 400-yr period: Judges
• 1 &2 Sam, 1 & 2 Ki, 1 & 2 Chr. during the 4th 400-yr period: Monarchy
• The prophetic books (major and minor prophets, Isaiah to Malachi) during the 5th 400-yr period.

Maybe that kind of structure will help you with an overview to understand generally what fits where.

Only time and saturation will give you the details in-between those. One thing I do (when I can't fall asleep or when I wake up in the middle of the night) is to try to go through each book of the Bible and say what each chapter is about. If I can't come up with it, I remind myself the next day and look it up. It helps to give me the flow.

[Sin Woke]

> The time of silence: roughly 400 BC-0.

Presumably, this is because you ignore some books, such as 1 Maccabees, Tobit, and Sirach.

[jimwalton]

I didn't ignore them. The OP was asking about Old Testament. These books (1 & 2 Macc., Tobit, Sirach, etc.) were never included in the Old Testament. They appeared more than 200 years after the close the OT canon (Malachi, 2 Chronicles). These books were never accepted as Scripture by the Jewish rabbis and scholars of 200 BC onward. They were never recognized by Jews as canonical. The Jews recognized that the age of the prophets had come to an end with Malachi. While Jewish scholars and writers continued to produce literature of various kinds, none of these works were venerated as Scripture.

So I didn't ignore them. They were not regarded as Scripture in the canon and in the era of the OP's questions.

[Sin Woke]

They are included in the Septuagint. They are accepted as canonical by the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

The Tanakh has three parts: the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy), the Nebi'im (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hoshea to Malachi), and the Ketubim (everything else).

Only the first two parts, the Torah and the Nebi'im, were canonized during Jesus' time. (referred to as "the Law and the Prophets" in the New Testament)

Daniel was written around 165 BCE, not prior to 400 BCE.

The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Tanakh used both by Jews and by Christians, and it contained them.

The same Christians that decided what books should be included in the New Testament accepted them. They were accepted before Revelation was added to the New Testament.

While not all Jews accepted them prior to the canonization of the Ketubim, neither did all Jews accept all books now included in the Masoretic text and accepted by Protestants. Esther is an example of a disputed book that almost didn't make it.

After Jews canonized the Ketubim, Jerome noted that they were excluded from the Masoretic canon. But Catholics/Orthodox still accepted them.

Protestants decided to remove them from the already established Christian canon, because, as Jerome noted, they weren't included in the Masoretic canon (but Ethiopic and Eritrean Jews still accepted some of them). But neither are the New Testament accepted by Jews. To be consistent, Protestants need to remove the New Testament.

> They were not regarded as Scripture in the canon and in the era of the OP's questions.

OP doesn't state anything about canon, other than using the term "the Old Testament", which is a Christian name for the Tanakh.

What OP mentions about era, is Judges, 2 Kings, David, Josiah, and Ahab. In that era, most of the Torah and the Nebi'im didn't even exist and none of it were canon.

You might be a Protestant that believes Luther and Calvin stood on the Mount of Sinai and God told them "these are the books I have inspired and those I have not", but that's not historically correct.

[jimwalton]

> They are included in the Septuagint. They are accepted as canonical by the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Yes, they are accepted as canonical by RC and EO, but they are NOT accepted as canonical by the Jewish community or scholars in the centuries from when they were written and onward. They have NEVER been accepted as canonical by Judaism. They were included in the Septuagint, but were in a separate section. They were not regarded as inspired Scripture.

But the time of the church era of the 1st century, the Apocrypha was passing out of use, largely because of the strong emphasis on the Torah by the Jewish rabbis. Jesus and the writers of the NT never once quote the books of the Apocrypha. They allude to them a few times, but they never do so in an authoritative manner.

The Apocrypha books clearly distinguish themselves from the inspired writings of the Hebrew canon in that they never claim divine authority or prophetic origin. "Thus says the Lord" is completely missing from all of them.

> They are accepted as canonical by the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Yes, in AD 300, centuries later. The first canonical list to include them is Origen in about 250.

> Daniel was written around 165 BCE, not prior to 400 BCE.

This is highly debated, and I disagree with this position. There are valid reasons to consider Daniel having been written in 6th c. BC, and that is the position I hold.

> The same Christians that decided what books should be included in the New Testament accepted them. They were accepted before Revelation was added to the New Testament.

This is disputable, and I dispute it.

• In the apostolic era, there are no canonical lists, but not a single NT author quotes from them.
• From the Apostolic Fathers from 100-140, we have no quotes from the Apocryphal books.
• From 140-220, we have quotes from the Church Fathers including Acts, 13 Pauline Epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, Jude, and Revelation (notice Revelation is on the list). Books that were still being discussed were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, The Didache, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Apocalypse of Peter.
• The Muratorian Fragment includes 2 or 4 of the Gospels, Acts, 13 epistles of Paul, 1 Jn., Jude, Revelation (notice Revelation is on the list), but only the Apocalypse of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon.
• Origen included Revelation and also the Apocrypha. Eusebius included Revelation but not the Apocrypha.
• Codex Vaticanus had the Apocrypha but not Revelation
• Athanasius had the 27 books of the NT as we have them today (including Revelation), but not the Apocrypha at all. So also Africanus and Melito of Sardis
• Jerome opposed the inclusion of the Apocrypha. He included Revelation.
• The Synod of Rome included all of it: 39 books of OT, Apocrypha, 27 books of NT.
• Council of Hippo included all 27 books of NT but only 6 books of Apocrypha.

Etc.

In other words, the picture is not as simplistic and straightforward as you are suggesting. And Revelation was included before the Apocryphal books.

> Protestants decided to remove them from the already established Christian canon,

The Protestants didn't REMOVE them. They were continually in dispute.

• The Muratorian Fragment didn't include them
• Eusebius didn't include them
• Codex Sinaiticus included only 7 of them
• Athanasius, Africanus, and Melito didn't include them
• Jerome didn't want them included
• The Council of Hippo included only 6 of them
• Codex Alexandrinus didn't include them
• Through the Dark and Middle Ages, notables like Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory the Great, John of Damascus, John Wycliffe, Hugh of St. Victor, and Nicholas of Lyra did not include them.

It's disingenuous and inaccurate to say the Protestants removed them from the already established canon. The entire canon was under continual debate until about 1600.

> You might be a Protestant that believes Luther and Calvin stood on the Mount of Sinai and God told them "these are the books I have inspired and those I have not", but that's not historically correct.

Nope I'm not. Of course it's not correct, but I understand you're just being a smart aleck. Y'know, I was just trying to help the OP with a system by which to keep the Tanakh organized in his head. If you want to substitute "400 years of disputed books" in the place of "400 years of silence," be my guest.

[Tim Jim]

I might quibble with "they have never been accepted as canonical in Judaism". I don't think we have any complete Jewish canon lists from before about 400 AD in the Talmud, so it's very difficult to say exactly what the Jewish "canon" was prior to this, or whether there even was a single agreed-upon canon. But yes, Rabbinical Judaism from 400 AD or so onward does use a Tanakh that looks like a Protestant Old Testament, and probably at least some influential strains within Judaism were using something close to the "Protestant" canon of the Old Testament even earlier. But it's murky.

The question is whether the Talmud is an authority on the limits of canon for Christians at all.

As for the idea that the Deuterocanonical books were kept in a "separate section" in the Septuagint, I dont think that's true. The oldest relatively complete Septuagint that I know of, the text of Vaticanus, does not keep the Deuterocanonical books in a separate section, though I would be interested to know if there are any early counter-examples.