The Council of Jamnia, presumably held in Yavneh in the Holy Land, was a hypothetical late 1st-century council at which the canon of the Hebrew Bible was formerly believed to have been finalized and which may also have been the occasion when the Jewish authorities decided to exclude believers in Jesus as the Messiah from synagogue attendance, as referenced by interpretations of in the New Testament. The writing of the Birkat ha-Minim benediction is attributed to Shmuel ha-Katan at the supposed Council of Jamnia. The theory that Jamnia finalised the canon, first proposed by Heinrich Graetz in 1871, was popular for much of the 20th century. However, it was increasingly questioned from the 1960s onward, and the theory has been largely discredited.
The Mishnah, compiled at the end of the 2nd century, describes a debate over the status of some books of Ketuvim, and in particular over whether or not they render the hands "impure". Yadaim 3:5 calls attention to a debate over Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. The Megillat Taanit, in a discussion of days when fasting is prohibited but that are not noted in the Bible, mentions the holiday of Purim. Based on these, and a few similar references, Heinrich Graetz concluded in 1871 that there had been a Council of Jamnia which had decided the Jewish canon sometime in the late 1st century.
Refutation
W. M. Christie was the first to dispute this popular theory in an article entitled "The Jamnia Period in Jewish History". Jack P. Lewis wrote a critique of the popular consensus entitled "What Do We Mean by Jabneh?". Sid Z. Leiman made an independent challenge for his University of Pennsylvania thesis published later as a book in 1976. Raymond E. Brown largely supported Lewis in his review published in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, as did Lewis' discussion of the topic in 1992's Anchor Bible Dictionary. Albert C. Sundberg Jr. summarized the crux of Lewis' argument as follows:
Jewish sources contain echoes of debate about biblical books but canonicity was not the issue and debate was not connected with Jabneh... Moreover, specific canonical discussion at Jabneh is attested only for Chronicles and Song of Songs. Both circulated prior to Jabneh. There was vigorous debate between Beth Shammai and Beth Hillel over Chronicles and Song; Beth Hillel affirmed that both "defile the hands". One text does speak of official action at Jabneh. It gives a blanket statement that "all Holy Scripture defile the hands", and adds "on the day they made R. Eleazar b. Azariah head of the college, the Song of Songs and Koheleth both render the hands unclean". Of the apocryphal books, only Ben Sira is mentioned by name in rabbinic sources and it continued to be circulated, copied and cited. No book is ever mentioned in the sources as being excluded from the canon at Jabneh.
According to Lewis:
The concept of the Council of Jamnia is an hypothesis to explain the canonization of the Writings resulting in the closing of the Hebrew canon....These ongoing debates suggest the paucity of evidence on which the hypothesis of the Council of Jamnia rests and raise the question whether it has not served its usefulness and should be relegated to the limbo of unestablished hypotheses. It should not be allowed to be considered a consensus established by mere repetition of assertion.
The 20th-century evangelical scholar F. F. Bruce thought that it was "probably unwise to talk as if there were a Council or Synod of Jamnia which laid down the limits of the Old Testament canon." Other scholars have since joined in and today the theory is largely discredited. Some hold that the Hebrew canon was established during the Hasmonean dynasty.
