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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
How Jews read Scripture
By the first century Jews held a known body of sacred writings, roughly the Old Testament, to be God's true word. They taught it to children from infancy, read it aloud in the synagogue and explained it, and Greek-speaking Jews called it the sacred writings.
In some homes children learn whole chapters of the Bible by heart before they can read a newspaper. By the time of Jesus and Paul, Jews had a set of sacred books, the law of Moses, the prophets and the other writings, close to what Christians call the Old Testament. They held these books to come from God and to be true. Parents taught them to children from a young age, mostly by memory and recitation, and every Sabbath the synagogue read them aloud and explained them. Greek-speaking Jews called them the sacred writings. Some Jews outside Judea also read other books in Greek, which Judeans did not count as Scripture.
Sacred writings was also a name for pagan religious texts, those of the cult of Isis among them. Greek-speaking Jewish sources used it for the Bible they had, what we call the Old Testament. Josephus says the Jews have only twenty-two books, "which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine." He counts five of Moses, thirteen written by the prophets after him, and four of hymns to God and rules for life (Against Apion 1.8). Most Judeans accepted those books. Some sects may have added others such as Jubilees and 1 Enoch, and many Diaspora Jews also read Greek books now in the Apocrypha, which Judeans did not count as canonical. Belief that gods inspired prophecy and even poetry was widespread. Jews held that God's Spirit inspired their Scriptures and that their message was true. The ESV Study Bible notes that the word Paul uses, God-breathed, appears in no Greek text before 2 Timothy. In devout Palestinian homes boys learned the sacred writings from about five, and other peoples marveled at how well Jewish children knew their traditions. Josephus says the law commands parents "to bring those children up in learning, and to exercise them in the laws" from infancy (Against Apion 2.26). In the synagogue the Law, probably with a reading from the Prophets, was read aloud and then explained. Interpreters had set ways of arguing from the text. They linked passages that shared a key word (gezerah shavah), reasoned from lesser to greater (qal vahomer, how much more), and argued from what a text leaves unsaid. Keener finds all three in Hebrews, with parallels in the Scrolls, the rabbis and Philo.
An analogy: a family Bible handed down for generations, with the same books bound inside every copy. The arguments around the kitchen table are about what the verses mean, not about which pages belong between the covers.
Because Jews held a known body of Scripture to be God's word and taught it from childhood, Timothy's knowledge of the sacred writings from infancy in 2 Timothy 3:15 is the fruit of a Jewish upbringing. Reading Scripture aloud and then explaining it, as in the synagogue of Acts 13:15, carried over into the churches, where 1 Timothy 4:13 tells Timothy to devote himself to the public reading.
Not a single bound book with a table of contents. The Scriptures were separate scrolls, counted in different ways, and some Greek-speaking Jews read books that Judeans did not count; what Jews held in common was the core of law, prophets and writings and the conviction that God spoke in them.
Two points. First, whether all Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 already reaches beyond the Old Testament. The ESV Study Bible says it refers first to the Old Testament, but by implication to at least some New Testament writings already counted as Scripture, pointing to 1 Timothy 5:18. Keener writes that Timothy's Scriptures were, in his day, the Old Testament. Second, which books counted. The cultural backgrounds notes say some sects may have added books such as Jubilees and 1 Enoch, though others did not treat them as Scripture. They add that many Diaspora Jews read the books now in the Apocrypha, and Keener that the most common forms of the Greek Old Testament seem to have included them.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/hebrews-2-1-4\/","n":"Hebrews 2:1-4, The message spoken through angels","s":"The readers must hold to what they have heard, or drift away. If the message spoken through angels was binding and every breach was punished, there is no escape for those who neglect the greater salvation announced by the Lord and confirmed by God with signs.","r":"Hebrews 2:1-4"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/hebrews-7-1-10\/","n":"Hebrews 7:1-10, Melchizedek, priest-king of Salem","s":"Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, met Abraham, blessed him and received a tenth of the spoil. With no father, mother or genealogy recorded, he resembles the Son of God, and because Levi was still in Abraham's body when Abraham paid him, his priesthood ranks above Levi's.","r":"Hebrews 7:1-10"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1peter-2-1-10\/","n":"1 Peter 2:1-10, Living stones and a royal priesthood","s":"Like newborn babies the readers should crave pure milk. Coming to Christ, the living stone rejected by people but chosen by God, they are being built into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood; Peter strings together Scripture's stone texts and calls them a chosen people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation.","r":"1 Peter 2:1-10"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/2peter-3-1-18\/","n":"2 Peter 3:1-18, Scoffers, the flood and the day of fire","s":"Scoffers will ask where the promised coming is, since everything goes on as it has since creation. Peter answers that the world once made by God's word was destroyed by water and is now kept for fire on the day of judgment; the Lord does not count time as people do, and he delays out of patience. The day will come like a thief, and the readers wait for new heavens and a new earth, as Paul too wrote in letters some twist like the other Scriptures.","r":"2 Peter 3:1-18"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-15 and 3:16-17, introduction to 2 Timothy 4:1-8, and on 1 Timothy 4:13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Timothy 3:15 and 3:16
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on 2 Timothy 3:16 and 1 Timothy 4:13
- Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 and 2.26, trans. William Whiston
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Hebrews (Argumentation), and on Hebrews 2:1-4, 2:6-7, 2:8 and 7:3
