The Old Testament canon: Terminology, history of research, and its current status

Konrad Buzała

doi:10.36124/rt.2025.17

Published: 2025-12-281

Vol. 67 No. 3 (2025)

The Old Testament canon

Konrad Buzała

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-7437-8428

https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2025.17

Terminology, history of research, and its current status

Abstract

This article presents the state of research on the process of the formation of the Old Testament canon, including both its history and its current status. For the sake of clarity, it begins with a presentation of the nuances of the terminology, given the ambiguities inherent in it, resulting on the one hand from the complexity of the subject itself, and the other from differences of opinion among scholars. This is followed by a summary of the history of research, with a particular focus on the rise, theses, and demise of the standard theory formulated by Herbert Edward Ryle in 1892. The final section describes the status of contemporary research, especially the views of the two main groups of scholars, i.e., the minimalists and the maximalists. Given the continued popularity of classical theory in Polish academic discourse, the author hopes to contribute to a growing awareness of 21st-century accounts of the history of the formation of the biblical canon.

Keywords:

canon, Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, council of Jamnia, Palestinian canon, Alexandrian canon, Septuagint, LXX, Herbert Edward Ryle, maximalists, minimalists, Roger T. Beckwith, Lee Martin McDonald

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Buzała, K. (2025). The Old Testament canon: Terminology, history of research, and its current status. Theological Yearbook, 67(3), 405–431. https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2025.17

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The Old Testament canon

Konrad Buzała

Terminology, history of research, and its current status

Abstract

Keywords:

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