History of the Tanakh Canon of Scripture

The Ancient Hebrew scripture otherwise known as the Old Testament by Christians and as the Tanakh by Jews is comprised of the Teachings also known as Torah in Hebrew, the Writings also known as Ketuvim in Hebrew, and the Prophets also known as Nevi'im in Hebrew. The first element of the Ancient Hebrew scripture to emerge was the Torah or also known to Christians as the Pentateuch, and many believe that the Torah was written by Moses himself as the Jews exited Egypt. The Torah however contains what are known as the five books of Moses and begins with Genesis that gives a history of the Hebrew people, contains a complete message regarding redemption, and presents a theology of God through creation and thus man's relation to God from a special creationist perspective.

Although Genesis gives a very basic theological model that the other four books of Moses as well as the rest of the bible expand upon, the existence of Genesis prior to the writings of Moses's other four books that expand upon Genesis is often brought into question by many scholars. The four books that follow Genesis are Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and each of these four books develop the teachings of God to administer justice, advance the nation of Israel, and make atonement for the people. Overall, many would thus make the case that Genesis is much older than the other four books of Moses because it would have been about ancient history at the time of Moses, and I myself find this argument for the age of Genesis to predate Moses to be very compelling.

The Writings of the Hebrew Bible contain the book of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, I Chronicles, and II Chronicles. The purpose of calling the Kethuvim the Writings is that the works are very reflective upon the teachings of God, and the works are very reflective upon history in such a way as to bring about the knowledge of God based upon the past and based upon experience of God. Most all of the Writings expand upon the Teachings in reflective ways such that the Teachings are sort of combined with experience and then elaborated upon in this way.

The Prophets of the Hebrew Bible contain Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, but the Prophets also contains a book known as The Twelve Minor Prophets that are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The Twelve Minor Prophets are considered minor because their writings are very short, but the major prophets of the Nevi'im have very long writings and are the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Overall, the major prophets and the minor prophets are really for the most part designed to project future expectations of the kingdom of Israel and the Messiah.

In short the five books of Moses are attributed to Moses, but Psalms, Proverbs, The Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes are attributed to King David and his son King Solomon that together had about as much impact as Moses himself, and we see that impact not just in writing but also in the development of the first temple for the Jews constructed under the authority of King Solomon with the plans from King David. I Chronicles, II Chronicles, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, and II Kings depict the general time frame of King David and latter kings, but Job, Joshua, and Judges depict the time prior to Israel having a king with Job being the oldest of the three describing a time that fits best with the time period of Genesis. Overall, the works that are not of the time of Moses and are not of the time of King David and his son, are perhaps best divided among the time periods of the three Major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel).

Isaiah is written about the future history of Israel from the time of the divided Kingdom that occurred after the death of Solomon all the way into the Messianic age, but Isaiah was written into the time of the division of Israel and Judah much after the death of Solomon. Jeremiah however is written prior to and during the Babylonian captivity that involved the kingdom that David and his son Solomon has established being overtaken by the Babylonian empire, and the book of Daniel describes the end of the Jews being kept in Babylonian captivity. Ezekiel was written from within the Babylonian captivity, and it describes the future destruction of Jerusalem in 72AD as well as the third temple that has never yet been constructed.

The fact that Kings books I & II are contained in the Nevi'im while Chronicles books I & II are contained in the Kethuvim suggest that the Nevi'im and the Kethuvim had been not always kept together, and I say this because the books of Kings and the books of Chronicles saw much of the same things as if duplicating efforts. The point that I am making is that the Torah, Nevi'im, and Kethuvim had all been separate collections of scripture that may not have usually been kept together, but today all three collections are contained in the Tanakh. Because of how basic the Torah is, it would have been the most likely collection of scripture for ancient Jews to be exposed to, but based upon the evidence of the Nevi'm and the Kethuvim being two different collections of scripture thus many ancient Jews would have perhaps had either the Nevi'im or the Kethuvim along with the Torah but having all three collections together would have been the rarest case.

I would speculate that some ancient Jews could have had the scripture of the most recent books of their time only, combined with their favorite books, or combined with common books without having a complete collection of scripture. For example some might have owned Genesis for giving their children a theological foundation, Leviticus for knowing the law, and either one major prophet or the book of The Twelve Minor Prophets. Ideally however most ancient Jews should have had availability to the entire Torah.

The time period of the Jews in question combined with the interests and the level of desire of a particular set of Jews to obtain the scripture would determine what books had been made available, and this is especially true since making copies of the text involved expense, time, and lots of hand written effort. In fact many scholars find that during the Babylonian captivity translations that contained both translation and interpretation of Hebrew scripture synthesized together emerged in Aramaic called Targums, and this demonstrates the fact that Hebrew scripture became unavailable either due to Jews in Babylon having forgotten Hebrew or due to the Hebrew scripture not being in wide circulation. In conclusion what becomes clear is that what many call the Old Testament was not at all always experienced in the same way that we experience it today as a result of the fact that it may not have always been together as one thing for all people, and even if the scripture had been all together one thing for some people the common version would have sometimes differed from the official version like in the case of the Babylonian Targums.