Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Adler's The Origins of Judaism, Reviewed

I've been reading Yonatan Adler's book The Origins of Judaism (Yale, 2022), which I am finding very helpful and mostly persuasive. So I was interested to see that Jim Davila linked to a critical review of the book appearing in the Jerusalem Post and written by Ari Zivotofsky

To my mind, the review misunderstands the basic point of Adler's book. Zivotofsky seems to think that Adler wants to demonstrate that Judaism didn't exist before the second century BCE, or that the Pentateuch didn't exist until then, or that nobody had heard earlier of certain practices that have come to be associated closely with Judaism or Jewish identity (such as Sabbath observance and keeping kosher, etc.).

From the review: 

For example, Adler presents evidence that he claims demonstrates that the Torah's kosher dietary laws regarding forbidden species were not observed before the first century BCE. 

...

He then states that substantial numbers of non-kosher fish bones were found in and around Jerusalem in periods earlier than the second century BCE—proof, he says, that the Torah's dietary laws were not part of Jewish consciousness. 

...

Even if non-kosher fish bones prove lack of observance of dietary laws, they do not necessarily prove lack of awareness. Persian-era Nehemiah (13:16) sharply criticizes Judea's Jews: "And the Tyrians [who] abode therein were bringing fish and ... selling [them] on the Sabbath...." Thus non-kosher fish (whose remnants were found in a Jewish area) perhaps were eaten by non-Jewish merchants or purchased by non-observant but fully aware Jews.  

The reviewer is arguing that even if the Jews of Nehemiah's time did not observe the Torah's food laws, they may have been aware of those laws. This argument is intended as a criticism of Adler, but Adler does not argue any differently. Indeed, the reviewer repeatedly establishes Adler's case. 

Adler has no intention of arguing that the prescriptions of the Torah were unknown in Judah or Israel prior to the second century BCE. Instead, he seeks to show that there is no evidence that a variety of practices enjoined in the Torah were practiced among a large swathe of the Jewish population in an attempt to adhere to the Torah. All aspects of that sentence are important for Adler's thesis. He is looking for certain practices (kashrut, Sabbath rest, etc.), not knowledge of those practices. He is looking for widespread practice among the Jewish people, not among a distinct minority. And he is looking for practices that are motivated not by cultural norms but by adherence to the Torah. He shows repeatedly, in chapter after chapter, that it is the second century BCE when we have this kind of evidence. That does not mean that Jews did not observe the Sabbath before the second century BCE—or even that a widespread segment of the Jewish population did not observe the Sabbath in an effort to adhere to the Torah prior to the second century BCE—but we do not have evidence for such observance. Indeed, regarding the Sabbath command, we have explicit biblical evidence that not many Jews were observing the Sabbath in certain periods prior to the second century BCE (Jer 17:19–27; Neh 10:32; 13:15–22). They certainly knew about the Sabbath prohibitions, at least the ones who heard Nehemiah or Jeremiah yell at them about it, but they weren't practicing them. 

The reviewer insists that "A lack of adherence does not prove lack of knowledge...," which is true, but it does prove a lack of adherence. 

The reviewer disputes Adler's argument in regard to figural art, noting that later periods interpreted the Torah's proscriptions of images (such as in the Ten Commandments) differently from the common interpretation current in the first century CE and the immediately preceding centuries. But Adler himself had pointed this out on the first page of the chapter (p. 87) and in the last endnote of the chapter (p. 268 n. 126). 

About tefillin (the subject of Adler's chapter 4), the reviewer says:

Adler uses lack of evidence to "prove" that certain rituals did not exist, such as not finding evidence of tefillin earlier than the second century BCE. 

Contrast this interpretation of Adler with Adler's own concluding sentence of the relevant chapter: "No evidence for the observance of any practice resembling either tefillin or mezuzah is available from any time before the middle of the second century BCE" (p. 131). "No evidence for the observance" is true, if one follows the analysis of Adler, and I wonder if the reviewer—had he read Adler closely enough to realize what Adler is actually arguing—would dispute that conclusion. At any rate, "no evidence" is a far cry from the reviewer's claim that Adler seeks to prove non-existence for these rituals. According to the reviewer: "For Adler to argue that the absence of even older tefillin proves their nonexistence is fallacious." Indeed. 

One last quotation from the review: 

Finding a suggestion of lack of observance is not definitive proof of ignorance of the laws nor lack of observance among other contemporaneous Jews. Even a cursory reading of the Bible paints a picture of the masses not always following the Torah's rules; thus it is not surprising to discover evidence of laxity among the Iron Age II or Persian-era masses. 

Again, the reviewer makes half of Adler's point for him, which is the laxity. The other half of Adler's point: where is the evidence for fastidiousness among the Iron Age II or Persian-era masses when it comes to observing the Torah's laws? 

Now, admittedly, I said I'm reading Adler's book, so I haven't read all the way through it. Perhaps in later pages he will start making sweeping generalizations or giant leaps of logic, but I haven't seen it yet, nothing like what the reviewer attributes to him. Hitherto his argument is reminding me a lot of Morton Smith's 1971 book Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament, a book that does not appear in Adler's bibliography. The last chapter of Adler's book promises a historical reconstruction that requires some imagination, so we will see what he comes up with. 

Monday, March 7, 2022

Dorival on the History of Canon Research

I've been writing about Gilles Dorival's new book on the LXX (here), particularly about his first chapter on the development of the Jewish canon (here). Dorival spends a few pages (pp. 7–11) of his first chapter surveying "Theories of the Formation of the Biblical Canon." In this post I note merely some corrections and confusions (on my part, or Dorival's). 

Several times in this book (pp. 7, 35–36, 171), Dorival attributes the first formulation of the Alexandrian canon theory to Grabe in the preface to his 1715 translation the Letter of Aristeas. But, as I've noted before, Grabe did not write that preface, and the preface has nothing whatever to do with the Alexandrian canon theory. Instead, the first formulation of the theory should be attributed to Francis Lee in 1719 (see here). 

In this section Dorival also describes the three-stage theory of canon formation (p. 8). In favor of the view that the Torah was canonized first, Dorival comments on Ezra's reading of the Law in Nehemiah 8 during the course of a morning. "Since half a day is time enough for the reading of the Law, but not the Law and the Prophets, the implication is that the Prophets were not yet part of the canon." This argument makes no sense. Now, I acknowledge that Dorival goes on to argue against this three-stage theory, so he would presumably respond to my previous sentence by saying, "yeah, I know." But I'm wondering whether anyone can ever have really brought forward this line of argument about Nehemiah 8. I've never heard it in those terms, before, and for good reason: Nehemiah 8 says nothing about Ezra reading the Prophets, so why would anyone think it would be a good argument to say that he didn't have time to read the Prophets? And another thing: what about Dorival's assertion that half a day is plenty of time to read the Pentateuch? I guess, but you'd have to read quickly. On the next page Dorival acknowledges that the half-day reading "suggested that the Biblical corpus was limited to the Torah or even to one book of it" (p. 9). 

The overturning of the Alexandrian canon theory occupies the next couple paragraphs, in the midst of which he makes an interesting statement about the discovery of Ben Sira in the Cairo Genizah: "For the first time, it was proved that a book hitherto considered as specific to the Alexandrian Bible had a prior existence in Hebrew" (p. 10). Did scholars in the nineteenth century really think that Sirach might have been written in Greek? Even though the translator's preface precedes the book in Greek? And even though Jerome had said (in his preface to the books of Solomon according to the Hebrew) that he had seen a copy of Sirach in Hebrew? And even though the book is quoted in rabbinic literature, a fact surely known to those nineteenth century scholars? A statement similar to Dorival's is made in an article by Natalio Fernández Marcos (in his essay in this book), when he claims that the Alexandrian Canon hypothesis was based in part on "the idea that most of the deuterocanonical/apocryphal books had been composed in Greek and on Egyptian soil" (p. 76), an idea refuted, he says, by the discovery of Hebrew Ben Sira in the Cairo Genizah and the discovery of Hebrew Ben Sira and Hebrew/Aramaic Tobit at Qumran. 

Look, maybe Fernández Marcos and Dorival are right about this—that scholars used to think these writings were composed in Greek—but I have my doubts. First, Jerome (problematically) claimed he had translated Tobit from a semitic text, so I don't see why western scholars would ever imagine that Tobit had been composed in Greek. I've already mentioned the evidence for Ben Sira. I don't feel like digging through nineteenth-century writings on the canon right now to see whether they thought the deuterocanonicals were written in Greek, but these two books (Tobit and Ben Sira) are the worst examples, because there was definite evidence for a semitic origin long before the discoveries in modern times. Furthermore, the heyday of the Alexandrian Canon hypothesis was the first half of the twentieth century (see here), and started to be widely accepted right around the time of the discovery of the Cairo Genizah. How could the Alexandrian Canon hypothesis be based on the idea that the deuterocanonicals originated in Greek if the strongest supporters of the hypothesis lived after the discoveries in the Cairo Genizah? 

Dorival's conclusion to this section: 

Because of these discoveries [= Cairo Genizah and Dead Sea Scrolls], one may conclude that, in the Judaism prior to Jabneh, a collection of holy books larger than the Jewish canon of twenty-two/twenty-four books existed. This collection appears to vary from group to group, with a stable of books common to them all. There is no direct connection between Alexandria and the deuterocanonical books. The Christian Old Testament is larger than the Rabbinic Bible because it comes from the larger collection of books that was understood as 'inspired' by one or several Jewish groups at the beginning of the Christian Era. (p. 11)

This view has similarities to the "majority canon" position of Timothy Lim, though Dorival does not cite Lim here. I myself think that this conclusion should be stated less confidently. (See my review of Lim.) It is, in fact, not clear that "a collection of holy books larger than the Jewish canon of twenty-two/twenty-four books existed," although I suppose that Dorival is correct that "one may [or may not] conclude" so. 

Friday, March 4, 2022

Dorival on Canon Terminology

As I mentioned last time, I've got some thing's to say about Dorival's first chapter, the one on the development of the Jewish canon. As it turns out, I'm going to split my thoughts on this chapter into at least two posts. 

Dorival's first major section in the chapter is called "Words and Concepts" (pp. 3–7). He runs through the well-known history of the word κανών and related terminology. Let me mention first something that I appreciated. Dorival acknowledges that a canon can exist even in the absence of the word "canon," and he thinks such was the case for some ancient Jews. 

First, even if the word 'canon' is lacking, the reality of the canon did exist in these ancient Jewish milieus: that is, a list of books understood as being in some sense normative. Greek-speaking Jews probably used the expression 'testamentary books' (ἐνδιάθηκοι) for this list. (p. 5)

For the term ἐνδιάθηκος, see Origen's Selecta in Psalmos 1 as quoted by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.25), where the list of of "testamentary books" is attributed to "the Hebrews," from whom Origen may also have derived the terminology of "testamentary books."  

Moreover, Dorival argues that the Rabbis used the word seder for what Christians called a κανών, and he cites Jerome's Prologus Galeatus (where the term is ordo) in favor (pp. 5–6). 

In Jerome's text, the word ordo first refers to the succession of the books among the three categories of biblical books, but then also to each category of books. The word ordo has the meaning of category of books in Gelasius' Decretum ... and in Rufinus, Commentarius in symbolum Apostolorum 36. (pp. 5–6)

He connects ordo in these Latin sources to seder at b. B. Bathra 14b. "The suggestion is that the Sages called seder what the Church fathers referred to as canon" (p. 6). I think this is a good possibility. I feel like I may have made this suggestion in print, but I can't remember where. I'm glad to see it here in Dorival. (Or, maybe I just read it in the previous French version of this essay.)  

I do have a couple of critiques on small points about termionology. Dorival discusses the Hellenistic-era Alexandrian canons of classical authors, seemingly implying that the word κανών was used for these lists (p. 4). It was not. Later he says:

English historians assert that the first modern occurrence of the word 'canon' meaning 'the canon of the Scriptures' is David Rhunken [sic] in 1768. In fact, this word with this meaning is found in French writings of the late seventeenth century: in 1685, in the work of Richard Simon ('Canon juif') ... (p. 6, providing further examples)

These statements from Dorival are confused. What can he mean by telling us that the word "canon" in the sense of "canon of Scripture" is already so used in seventeenth-century French literature? He seems to mean that Simon's use of the word "canon" in this sense is an early example of this meaning, but hasn't Dorival already told us that this word is used in this sense in fourth-century Greek literature? In that case, Richard Simon was not innovating, even if the word "canon" was rarely used in this sense in the intervening years (about which I am not certain). Actually, now that I look back at Dorival's first few pages, I'm not sure whether he acknowledges that Athanasius used κανών and related terms to designate the canon of Scripture. He simply notes on p. 3 that Eusebius and Athanasius did use these terms, but he doesn't say what sense the words bore in those contexts (and Eusebius himself did not use κανών for "canon of Scripture"). As for the assertion about English historians and David Ruhnken, I believe Dorival has again misunderstood. In a previous post, I noted that Ruhnken is credited as the first person to use the word "canon"—not in the sense of "canon of Scripture," a usage that goes back to Athanasius, but—for the lists of classical authors drawn up by the Hellenistic-era Alexandrian scholars. Those Alexandrian scholars did not use the term "canon" to talk about "the canon of Greek orators" or whatever; that was the innovation of Ruhnken.   

Another thing: Dorival says, "The existence of the acronym Tanak (b. Sanhedrin 101a, b. Qiddushin 49a, b. Mo'ed Qatan 21a) seems to imply they did not have a word for canon" (p. 5). The French version (p. 12) makes it even more clear that Dorival means that the Talmud uses the acronym Tanak. But the Talmud does not use the acronym. In the three passages listed by Dorival, the Talmud uses the spelled-out names Torah, Neviim, Ketuvim (in Hebrew, or—in the case of Quddushin—Aramaic), not the acronym. I checked in the Soncino edition of the Vilna Shas, but you can also check it at Sefaria: it's §3 of Sanhedrin 101a§12 of Qiddushin 49a; and §7 of Mo'ed Qatan 21a. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something?  

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Dorival's New LXX Book

Gilles Dorival is well-known among Septuagint specialists, as he has contributed many French-language studies to the field, and has especially dedicated his energies to the study of the catenae, and he has also dabbled in the development of the Jewish and Christian biblical canons. Now he has published his Grinfield Lectures in a monograph, The Septuagint from Alexandria to Constantinople: Canon, New Testament, Church Fathers, Catenae (Oxford, 2021). 

The four subjects listed in the subtitle correspond to the four sections of the book, with each section constituting two chapters. After the eight main chapters, there is also a lengthy concluding summary (pp. 171–87).

Probably the most welcome part of this monograph is the final section on the catenae, a subject hitherto not well-served in English. As I mentioned, Dorival has contributed a great deal to this area of study, particularly on the catenae of the Psalms (see, e.g., here), and it is the Psalms from which he takes many of his examples in the current monograph. 

Nevertheless, it is the other sections of the book that dovetail most closely with my own interests, and it is nice to have Dorival's thoughts in English on these topics. In a subsequent post I will offer some appreciation and critique regarding certain things that Dorival says in the first chapter on the development of the Jewish canon, but for now I will simply summarize briefly his first six chapters. 

Chapter 1, "The Formation of the Jewish Canon" (pp. 3–33). As Dorival tells us in the first note, this is a translation of his essay in this book. I'll have more to say about this essay in a future post. 

Chapter 2, "The Septuagint and the Issue of the Canon" (pp. 34–47). Dorival rejects the Alexandrian Canon hypothesis. He argues that some Jews before the turn of the era had a category of books that were not read publicly but rather privately, and that this category influenced the reception of the deuterocanonical books in Christianity. 

Chapter 3, "Is the Septuagint the Old Testament of the New Testament?" (pp. 51–68). The answer is "yes, with caveats," the biggest caveats being that not every quotation aligns with OG. 

Chapter 4, "Was the Text of the Septuagint Christianized?" (pp. 69–91). This was a good chapter. The assumption among some scholars for some time has been that LXX manuscripts were occasionally Christianized, in the sense that OT verses quoted in a variant form in the NT were adapted in the LXX to align with the NT form of the verse. This view has been challenged, and Dorival joins that challenge here. He shows how little of the LXX can be said to have been Christianized. But he doesn't limit himself to OT verses quoted in the NT. He deals first with the insertion of actual Christian content into the LXX, which does occasionally happen, such as the interpolation of Rom 3:12–13 into the text of Psalm 13 in the majority of manuscripts, and the Christian texts (such as from Luke) in the Odes. As for the the OT quotations in the NT, Dorival examined the ones in the Psalms (25 total) and found that hardly any Christianization had occurred in many manuscripts of the LXX, with only the debated quotation of LXX Psa 39:7b being found in the majority of LXX manuscripts in its "Christian" form (if this form is not, indeed, the OG). 

Chapter 5, "Is the Septuagint the Old Testament of the Church Fathers?" (pp. 95–116). Here Dorival answers the question "yes and no." While the LXX served the majority of Greek and Latin Fathers as their OT, this was not usually true for Syriac-speaking Christians, and even Greek- and Latin-speaking Christians recognized that the LXX was a translation of the Hebrew and sometimes needed to be understood—or even corrected—according to the Hebrew or a closer translation of it. In his concluding chapter's summary of Chapter 5, he wraps up by saying: "In sum, whilst the domination of the Septuagint in patristic times is a fact, it requires qualification" (p. 178). I would like to think that my dissertation had some influence on Dorival's thinking here; he does cite it a time or two. 

Chapter 6, "The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and the Church Fathers" (pp. 117–31). Dorival summarizes Swete's presentation and updates it. 

And as I mentioned, the last two chapters introduce the catenae. 

Chapter 7,  "An Overview of the Catenae" (pp. 135–54)

Chapter 8, "The Catenae and the Septuagint" (pp. 155–70)

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Moberly on von Rad, and Augustine

In preparation for an upcoming course, I've been reading R. W. L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge, 2009), which is, of course, wonderful. Of the two chapters that deal with the call of Abraham (Gen 12:1–3), the first concerns the correct construal of the blessing formula in Genesis 12:3. God promises Abraham, "in you all the families of the earth shall..." what? Be blessed? Bless themselves? Is Abraham being charged with becoming a source of blessing for others, or a model of others' blessing formulae? Is this some sort of a missionary text, as if Abraham is called by God for a purpose, to bring blessing to the world? Or is this a promise of divine protection and blessing, that Abraham will become so prosperous that others will use his name as they bless people: "May you become as prosperous as Abraham!"? 

It is quite common for Christians to read the text in the first way, as a quasi-missionary text, and Moberly cites some heavy-hitters favoring this reading: Westermann, Childs, Christopher Wright, Bauckham. Moberly himself argues for the other reading, that Abraham's name will be used in the blessing formulae of others, and he cites Gunkel as a proponent of a rather negative version of this second reading strategy.  

The scholar with whom Moberly interacts most in this chapter is Gerhard von Rad. Moberly quotes a long passage from von Rad's Genesis commentary, a quotation that takes up more than a page of Moberly's text (pp. 142–44), and then he quotes von Rad again for about half a page. Von Rad was a proponent of the missional reading, and von Rad connected the call of Abraham very strongly to the New Testament. Moberly argues against von Rad's position. But rejection is not Moberly's last word on von Rad's interpretation. 

Von Rad's original formulation of the significance of the Yahwist and Genesis 12:1–3 was in the context of 1930s Nazi Germany, and his specific situation was as a member of the Confessing Church working at the University of Jena, where National Socialist policies were strongly promoted. [Moberly cites this essay.] In such a context, where the authorities degraded the Old Testament and denied any positive enduring significance to it, von Rad's work was a profound and imaginatively serious contribution; his argument for strong continuity between the Old and New Testaments is an argument that is intrinsic to Christian faith and was particularly timely as a Christian Old Testament scholar's response to Nazi ideology. By contrast, Gunkel's reading of God's call and promises as an example of Israel's rather inflated sense of self-importance would in no way have made any (would-be) Nazi or anti-Semite think twice. Good theological interpretation of the Old Testament is not necessarily that which might aspire to be recognized as correct in any time or any place; rather, part of its rightness may be specific and contextual, in its ability to articulate biblical priorities in relation to particular situations of need. To say this is not to prioritize relevance over accuracy, but rather to recognize, with the sociology of knowledge, that human understanding and insight depend on many factors other than pure reason and do not achieve finality in any one situation. (pp. 158–59)

There is a  lot in this paragraph that calls for reflection, and I'm thinking particularly of the way Moberly here formulates the task of theological interpretation. For now I want merely to put Moberly's interpretation of von Rad in conversation with Augustine. 

So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbour, has not yet succeeded in understanding them. Anyone who derives from them an idea which is useful for supporting this love but fails to say what the writer demonstrably meant in the passage has not made a fatal error, and is certainly not a liar. (De Doctrina Christiana 1.86, trans. Green)

Putting Moberly's reading of von Rad's interpretation next to Augustine's hermeneutical advice suggests that von Rad's incorrect interpretation of Gen 12:3 was more correct than a correct interpretation might have been. Of course, there were probably ways of articulating the "correct" interpretation more "lovingly" than did Gunkel (e.g., Moberly's own articulation of it), but one wonders how imaginable such an articulation would have been in von Rad's context. 

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Bickerman on Reviews of His Book

On this occasion many slips of previous editions have been tacitly corrected. It is a pity that the reviewers of my book preferred to praise it instead of pointing to its faults. 
--E. J. Bickerman, "Preface," in Chronology of the Ancient World, 2d ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), 7. 

Thursday, April 9, 2020

The Origins of the Use of the Term 'Canon' to Refer to Classical Works

These days, we use the word "canon" in many different contexts in reference to collections of authentic or superior works. If a work is in the Shakespeare canon, that basically means that Shakespeare wrote it (it's authentic or correctly attributed). If something is in the American literary canon, that means it was written by an American and is of superior quality. (Of course, there's not any official list of the American literary canon.) About the Harry Potter canon or the Star Wars canon—in which cases the creators are very conscious of creating canonical works—we might debate what counts as canon, and who gets to decide (and who cares). Anyway, we use the term canon for a lot of different things.

Such usage reflects the earlier use of the term "canon" in reference to classical Greek authors: the canon of Greek poets, or the canon of Greek orators. How early is this use of the word "canon"?

In his book on the New Testament canon, Bruce Metzger has a very helpful appendix on the development of the word canon (and you can read the whole thing here). At the bottom of p. 289, Metzger mentions the use of the Greek word κανών by Aristotle and others with the significance of "criterion" or some such, not in reference to literary works. Then Metzger says:
With reference to literature and style, the grammarians of Alexandria gave the name κανών to the collection of classical works deemed worthy of being followed as models because of the purity of their language. (pp. 289–90)
Metzger goes on to give further examples of "canon" meaning "standard," but not in reference to literature, but in reference to spears or music or epochs or whatever.

But Metzger was wrong about the earliest use of the word "canon" in reference to literature. The grammarians of Alexandria did not, in fact, use the word κανών for any collection of classical works. Such usage of "canon" came only very much later, in 1768, in a work of David Ruhnken. Here's the citation: David Ruhnken, “Historia critica oratorum Graecorum,” in P. Rutilii Lupi: De Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis Duo Libri (Lyons: Samuel and Joannes Luchtmans, 1768), xxxiii–c, at xcv. And this one you can also see online.

Here's the description of this development by Rudolph Pfeiffer in the first volume of his History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1968). He begins talking about the way classical Greek works were labeled by the Alexandrian grammarians.
The complete repertories were called πίνακες (indexes); but there was no corresponding Greek or Latin word for the selective lists. In the year A.D. 1768 the term 'canon' was coined for them by David Ruhnken, when he wrote: 'Ex magna oratorum copia tamquam in canonem decem dumtaxat rettulerunt' (sc. Aristarchus et Aristophanes Byzantius). Then Ruhnken dropped the cautious 'tamquam' and went on calling all the selective lists 'canones'. His coinage met with worldwide and lasting success, as the term was found to be so convenient; one has the impression that most people who use it believe that this usage is of Greek origin. But κανών was never used in this sense, nor would this have been possible. From its frequent use in ethics κανών always retained the meaning of rule or model. Aristophanes' grammatical observations about analogy in declension could be called κανόνες, rules, or a certain author and his style could be described as κανών, a model or exemplar. So it was not by the ancient, but it could have been by the Biblical, tradition that the catachrestic use of canon was suggested to Ruhnken. Though the Biblical canon does not mean a list of writers, it does mean a list of books of the Bible accepted by the Christian church as genuine and inspired; and this usage was and is current in all the modern languages. (p. 207)
Pfeiffer correctly refers to the usage of "canon" in reference to the Bible. This usage does go back to antiquity, to the work by Athanasius called De Decretis 18.3, written about the year 350, in which Athanasius says that the Shepherd of Hermas is not in the canon. More famously, in his 39th Festal Letter from about a decade and a half later (367), Athanasius uses the participle κανονιζόμενος ("canonized") in reference to the list of authoritative books. Since then, the word "canon" has been commonly used in reference to the Bible, but apparently not in reference to other literary works until 1768.