Note 209 — Chapter VIII · The Origin of the Old Testament Canon of Scripture

Ryle, for example, says that the expression by which Ben-Sira’s grandson “designates the third group certainly lacks definiteness. It does not warrant us to maintain that the ‘Writings’ or ‘Kethubim’ were all, in their completed form, known to the writer” (Op. cit., p. 119). And again (p. 121): “These writings, which are so well known to us, were probably only samples, though doubtless the choicest ones, of an abundant literature to which every Jew at the end of the third century B.C. had access.” On the other hand, Ryle believes that by about B.C. 200 there was a definitely recognized Hebrew Canon of Scripture consisting of the Law and the Prophets (Op. cit., p. 113).