When did the Hebrew canon come into being?—According to Jewish tradition the greater part of the Hebrew canon came into being with Ezra and Nehemiah. The non-canonical book 2 Maccabees refers to records and memoirs of Nehemiah, as well as to his library with books about the kings, prophets, and the writings of David (2 Macc 2:13). The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus argues that unlike the Greeks, who had an innumerable multitude of books, the Hebrews had only twenty-two books;2 he noted that these