MetaCatholic

John Hobbins begins a fascinating series on the canon over on Ancient Hebrew Poetry, inviting a dialogue around the topic. He begins with this definition:

I will use the term “canon” in a functional sense. A writing is canonical if and only if passages from it can be appealed to for the purpose of establishing a point of doctrine.

While appreciating the functionality, I wonder whether “point of doctrine” is too specific (and possibly too Christian) a starting place. There is something there about authorizing praxis or creating identity that is equally functional, and perhaps more accurate to the way in which canonical writings are used in their communities, which is mainly outside doctrinal debates and definitions. I’m not quite sure exactly how I would define that pithily; I simply raise the question for now.

His survey of the ways in which many different writings function canonically within Judaism shows developing levels of tradition building on those that came before them, well into the Middle Ages: a series of commentaries on commentaries. (I confine myself to interacting with his more general points, since I know comparatively little about the rich history of Jewish interpretation and tradition. The post is, however, a very usefully referenced resource.) He summarizes it like this;

Historically speaking, Judaism is a canon-making machine. Time and again, disparate texts were strung together, loosely integrated, or juxtaposed to form corpora worthy of study, transmission, and comment. Time and again, one canon-in-formation imposed order, opened up, and relativized canons already in existence in a never-ending stream of interpretation.

Perhaps that could indicate one way of defining canon: a canonical writing is one that people “write commentaries” on for guiding the praxis of faith of the community of their own time. (I intend this phrase to include a whole raft of expository and interpretative methods, not simply writing, and not simply commentaries per se.) 

Very broadly speaking, he effectively introduces a distinction between the way in which the canon of Tanakh is read in liturgical assembly, but the other canons are studied (as also is Tanakh). I wonder if this helps create some differences of approach and interpretation, however subtle, something that bears on the question I discussed a little while back of liturgical hermeneutics, although, as he points out, related material can be used with different kinds of authority in the liturgical tradition of Judaism, and textual authority is carefully multi-layered.

The canonical component of synagogue oratory is the text or texts treated as foundational to the teaching imparted. … A canonical interpretation of a canonical text may be the true foundation to the teaching imparted (an authorized translation, a transmitted midrash, or the authoritative comment of a Rashi or ibn Ezra). Nonetheless, authoritative interpretation derives its authority from the text it interprets.

Even then, it is not so simple as pure textual authority. texts are read in contexts, and he highlights the visual and experiential aspects of Jewish liturgy of different periods as part of that context:

It doesn’t take a particularly acute observer of religious life to note that a canon, no matter how consolidated, codetermines rather than dictates actual practice, today no less than in late antique Judaism and Christianity.

He proceeds via a number of contemporary examples of that rich juxtaposition of many differing elements and people’s (or the community’s) co-determination of meaning by cultural framework and canonical writing, inherited together. From this he moves on to develop an idea of the “counter-factuality” of canon. If I understand him rightly here, he is arguing that canon derives its present power from its ability to work against the grain of its received interpretations and contemporary life, to critique praxis, to be prophetic, and not simply inform it. A word from God, not a word of God, as it were. Having been established, canon now stands over the community that established it.

This, it seems to me, is a point well worth exploring further. How do authority and power interplay with the idea of a canon? Often when a canonical writing is appealed to as authority, it sometimes seems to be to justify, authorize and confirm the praxis of the community. When it is exegeted, interpreted and commented on in new contexts (which is only worth doing because it is authoritative) then it can sometimes act as a forceful goad to change, because the new voice of the old text becomes more compelling than the received meaning. Its power lies not in appealing to it as authoritative, but in interpreting it because it is authoritative.

Perhaps I could rework my own functional definition of canon above: A canonical writing is one that people find it worth “writing commentaries” on because through those commentaries the writing goes on being able to transform the perceptions and praxis of the canon’s community. If commentary on it ceased to be powerful, then its canonical authority may still be formal but not material at the present time.

These are just some initial thoughts, and I look forward to being educated as John develops his series.