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Canon of Bible :  How to Read the Early Fathers

Baruch

Esdras

Different Titles - Same Books

Psalms - Different Numbering System

Baruch - Included as part of  "Jeremiah"

Below you will find the lists of Books that are accepted as Sacred Scripture.  These were first put into one collection, the Bible, at the end of the fourth century.  When reading the Early Fathers you must remember that the titles, or categorization  and the numbering of these books was not standardized the same way that we label these books today. Many Fathers favored the total books in the Old Testament to be the number 22 or in some cases 24, the number of letters in the Hebrew or Greek alphabets.  The lists of Books are simplified so that many books are grouped together as “one” book.

For example, we read about the “one” Book of  “Jeremiah” which was understood to include Baruch and Lamentations and the Epistle.  This “Epistle” or  “Letter” was also understood to be part of Baruch, chapter 6, in some lists.

Cyril of Jerusalem,
Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 4

“35. … the Old Testament, as we have said, study the two and twenty books, … And after these come the five Prophetic books: of the Twelve Prophets one book, of Isaiah one, of Jeremiah one, including Baruch and Lamentations and the Epistle

 

The Lists of Books were not standardized by today's standards.
Compare how computers are always being updated in today's culture.
Language also changes, especially before the printing press.

Notice below how Hilary of Poitiers quotes Baruch 3:35-37, but he calls it Jeremiah.  Since Baruch was Jeremiah’s secretary it was counted as from the same source.

Hilary of Poitiers [Saint] [Doctor]
  - On the Trinity, Book 4  (Jurgens lists the Book as 3(?).   See Faith of the Early Fathers)

42. As you have listened already to Moses and Isaiah, so listen now to Jeremiah [ #8 Footnote in Jurgens]  
inculcating the same truth as they:— This is our God, and there shall be none other likened unto Him, Who has found out all the way of knowledge, and has given it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward did He show Himself upon earth and dwelt among men.

 

Jurgen’s Footnotes on this passage, Volume 1, page 380

“8. Baruch  3, 36-38.  Baruch was secretary to Jeremias, and is cited by the Fathers mostly under the name of Jeremias.

 

Baruch 3:35-37
“This is our God; no other can be compared to him! 36 He found the whole way to knowledge, and gave her to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. 37 Afterward she appeared upon earth and lived among men.”

Even in recent times the Book “Jeremiah” was understood to include his Lamentations, hence we have the total of 72 books as opposed to 73 books if they are counted separately.

The division into chapters so familiar to us in our modern Bibles was the invention either of Cardinal Hugo, a Dominican, in 1048, or more probably of Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, (d. 1027.)

 

Esdras

This chart below details the various ways some books are identified as “Esdras”

 

And for the scholar who really wants to explore every detail, see Esdras.

 

 

 Titles of Books:

Two different names

The names of the Books of the Bible are translated into English below.  (Sorry, KJV only people, but back then they did not speak the Kings English which is only about 400 years old.) 
And notice that in several cases the same Book can be referred to by two different names depending on whether the it was translated first from Hebrew into Greek or just transliterated from the Hebrew into Greek before being translated into English. 

 

GENESIS

EXODUS

LEVITICUS

NUMBERS

DEUTERONOMY

JOSUE  [now known as JOSHUA, son of Nun.  In LXX Iēsous Nauē (Latin Jesus Nave)]

JUDGES

RUTH

1 KINGS  [now known as 1 SAMUEL]

2 KINGS  [now known as 2 SAMUEL]

3 KINGS  [now known as 1 KINGS]

4 KINGS  [now known as 2 KINGS]

1 PARALIPOMENON  [now known as 1 CHRONICLES]

2 PARALIPOMENON  [now known as 2 CHRONICLES]

1 ESDRAS  [now known as EZRA]

2 ESDRAS, alias NEHEMIAS  [now known as NEHEMIAH]

TOBIAS  [now known as TOBIT. Beautiful love story. About St. Raphael]

JUDITH

ESTHER  [ only the complete edition, found in Catholic Bibles, mentions God.
The Protestant versions of Esther delete all references to God]

JOB

Psalter, or PSALMS,1    [  or PSALMS of King David]

PROVERBS  [ of Solomon]

ECCLESIASTES     [ of Solomon]

CANTICLE of CANTICLES  [now known as SONG OF SONGS, of Solomon]

WISDOM  [sometimes called "of Solomon" but sometimes recognized as written by Jesus Sirach, but see Augustine, Retractations 2.2]

ECCLESIASTICUS  [now known as SIRACH, sometimes called "of Solomon" but recognized as written by Jesus Sirach]]

ISAIAS  [now known as ISAIAH]

JEREMIAS  [now known as JEREMIAH]

LAMENTATIONS [of Jeremiah, traditionally considered part of the book of Jeremiah, therefore Canon = 72 books.]

BARUCH   [ Baruch was Jeremiah's secretary. Includes the "Letter of Jeremiah Against Idolatry" as the sixth chapter. ]

EZECHIEL  [now known as EZEKIEL]

DANIEL  [Includes Susanna, and  Bel and the Dragon ]

OSEE  [now known as HOSEA]

JOEL

AMOS

ABDIAS  [now known as OBADIAH]

JONAS

MICHEAS  [now known as MICAH]

NAHUM

HABACUC  [now known as HABAKKUK]

SOPHONIAS  [now known as ZEPHANIAH]

AGGEUS  [now known as HAGGAI]

ZACHARIAS  [now known as ZECHARIAH]

MALACHIAS  [now known as MALACHI]

1 MACHABEES  [now known as 1 MACCABEES]

2 MACHABEES  [now known as 2 MACCABEES]

 

APOCALYPSE  [ now know as REVELATION]

 

 

1.  The Psalter, or Psalms, were meant to be sung with the accompaniment of a string instrument.
 

Breviary depicting King David hearing God's Word
while kneeling next to his harp.

 

[Old English psaltere, from Late Latin psaltērium, from Greek psaltērion stringed instrument, from psallein to play a stringed instrument : < Greek psaltḗrion, derivative (with -tērion n. suffix) of psállein to pluck]

Why do some Psalms have two numbers?


Hebrew bibles and Greek/Latin bibles number the psalms differently.

PSALMS - Douay-Rheims Numbering [Modern Numbering]

 

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The Bible and the Canon,

Part I - Early Church

Part II - Protestants

Part III - Allusions 

 

 

 

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