The Council of Jamnia, likely held in Yavneh in the Holy Land, was supposedly a late 1st-century council. A few historians believe this council was when the Jewish religious leaders finalized the canon of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures.  They also argue that during this council the Jewish authorities decided to exclude believers in Messiah Yeshua from synagogue attendance. Some Christians believe the passage in John 9:22 of the New Testament Christian Scriptures refers to this council. Heinrich Graetz proposed the theory that Jamnia finalized the canon in 1871 CE. This theory was popular for much of the 20th century. However, in the 21st century, Christian and Jewish scholars question the validity of this theory. If this theory is real history, then after the Council of Jamnia that convened around 100 CE, an unified text suddenly became the standard at the end of the first century, and not one copy of a divergent text survived (except the Dead Sea scrolls, which the Essenes hid when Jamnia convened). This history indicates that the Council of Jamnia must have likely been responsible for this action.

Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph was this Council’s undisputed leader, though its Chairman was Yohannan ben Zakkai. In his later years, Akiba endorsed the rebellion of Bar Kokba against Rome, and supported him with his wealth, even endorsing him as the Messiah. The Romans captured Akiba  and transported him to Rome where the Romans executed him in 137 CE when he was 82 years old. The Council of Jamnia rejected the original Hebrew versions and the LXX versions. The Jewish religious leaders rejected the LXX version because it had become the Bible of the Christians. This repudiation of the LXX took form in the production of a rival version. This ‘rival version’ was the Masoretic Text (MT), with new alterations in chronology and eschatology. The Jewish and Christian communities eventually began using the MT as the primary narrative for the Old Testament Hebrew translations since the end of the fourth century CE.

The Council of Jamnia produced a unified text of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures and they ensured the destruction of all earlier divergent texts. This unified version, the MT, underwent a two-fold process. First, the religious scribes changed the paleo-Hebrew script of the Vorlage to square ‘modern’ characters. Second, they added vowels to the text around 900 CE because of the traditions held by the Masoretic School. For these reasons, religious scholars referred to it as the Masoretic text. This history reveals the source of considerable biblical corruption.

ANALYSIS

Today many biblical scholars reject the theory that there was a real Council of Jamnia in the first century CE. This theory appears to be an attempt by some scholars and biblical researchers to explain why the Greek LXX and the Hebrew MT is different in elements of eschatology, theology, and chronology.  While the Greek LXX appears to be consistent with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Flavius Josephus, and other first cen

tury biblical commentators, the Hebrew MT fails to reflect the Christological biblical passages and chronology of earlier Hebrew Scriptures. Although this evidence does not completely prove that there was a Council of Jamnia near the end of the first century CE, it does indicate that the religious scribes made changes to the earlier versions of the Hebrew Scriptures around the first and second centuries CE probably because the Jewish religious authority rejected Messiah Yeshua as their Messiah.

PRIMARY SOURCE: The Council of Jamina; Barry Setterfield; Derived from: http://www.setterfield.org/000docs/scriptchron.htm#intro