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The Great Assembly Settles the Question

Under the divine inspiration of Almighty God, Ezra and Nehemiah with the Great Assem-
bly convened to settle the matter. These two authoritative servants of God, along with the ordained
priests of God, were given the responsibility of assembling the inspired books of the prophets and
holy men of God. Their task was not to write the books, for they were already written. They had to
assemble the already acknowledged inspired books into one book in a final order.

Thus, we read: "To erect a wall of partition between the Jews and these apostates
(Manasseh and his followers), and to show the people which of the ancient prophetical books
were sacred ... the men of the Great Synagogue (Assembly) compiled the canon of the prophets"
(Cycle. of Bib., Thee. And Ecc. Lit., vol. x, p. 83).

The Canon of the Old Testament

That Ezra, Nehemiah and the Great Assembly, under the divine inspiration of the Spirit of
God, compiled the books of the Old Testament is the universal acknowledgment of all early Jews
and Christians (ibid., vol. ii, p. 75).

All of the Old Testament books, remember, WERE ALREADY WRITTEN. The task of the
Great Assembly was merely to put them together into one book in proper order! And this they did!

It has been thought by some modern critics that Ezra and the Great Assembly may have
sanctioned only the Law of Moses, the first five books. This is decidedly not the case! The very
reason the canon of the Old Testament had to be defined at this time was that the renegade Jew,
Manasseh, erroneously maintained that the first five books of Moses were the only inspired books.
He, out of his own vanity, rejected the inspired books of the Prophets and Psalms. These books
were already as much a part of God's Word as the Law of Moses.

It was not necessary to OFFICIALLY proclaim the Law of Moses AS BEING INSPIRED
FOR IT HAD ALREADY LONG BEEN RECOGNIZED AS GOD'S WORD. See II Kings 22:8.

It was, of course, God's purpose that all the writings of the Prophets be transmitted to those
of future eras in final and unchangeable form. The books of the Prophets, the Psalms and the other
books were now officially established, properly placed in the canon and PROCLAIMED as the
authoritative Word of God.

Proofs that Canon was Compiled Under Ezra and Nehemiah

We have the testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian, that the complete Old Testament
was finally settled and established in the days of Artaxerxes, king of Persia (Against Apion, I, 8).
By this, Josephus meant that the Old Testament canon was completed in the days of Ezra and
Nehemiah, for these two men of God lived in Artaxerxes' time.

Josephus also mentions that there had not been any prophet who had left any writings from
the time of Artaxerxes until the New Testament Period (ibid.). Even the writer of Maccabees
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