Council of Jamnia

Council of Jamnia is located in Israel
Council of Jamnia
Location of Jamnia (Yavne) in modern Israel

The Council of Jamnia (presumably Yavneh in the Holy Land) was a council purportedly held late in the 1st century AD to finalize the development of the canon of the Hebrew Bible in response to Christianity.[1][2][3] It has also been hypothesized to be the occasion when the Jewish authorities decided to exclude believers in Jesus as the Messiah from synagogue attendance, as referenced by interpretations of John 9:22 in the New Testament.[4] The writing of the Birkat haMinim benediction is attributed to Shmuel ha-Katan at the supposed Council of Jamnia.

The theory of a council of Jamnia that finalized the canon, first proposed by Heinrich Graetz in 1871,[5] was popular for much of the 20th century. However, it has been increasingly questioned since the 1960s onward, and the theory has now been largely discredited.[6]

  1. ^ Jack P. Lewis (2002). "Jamnia Revisited". In L. M. McDonald; J. A. Sanders (eds.). The Canon Debate.
  2. ^ Walter Kaiser (2001). The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant?. Downers Grove: InterVarsity. p. 31. ISBN 0830819754.
  3. ^ Jack P. Lewis (1964). "What Do We Mean by Jabneh?". Journal of Biblical Literature. 32: 125–130.
  4. ^ Edward W. Klink III (2008), "Expulsion from the synagogue? Rethinking a Johannine Anachronism", Tyndale Bulletin. Accessed 28 May 2016
  5. ^ Kohelet oder der Salomonische Prediger: Ubersetzt und Kritisch Erläutert, Leipzig 1871, pp. 147–173.
  6. ^ L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (eds.), The Canon Debate, Peabody (Mass.), Hendrickson Publishers, 2002, chapter 9: "Jamnia Revisited" by Jack P. Lewis, pp. 146–162.

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