The idea of a scriptural canon is one of the most distinctive achievements of many major religions, both Western (Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islām) and Eastern (the Pāli canon of Theravāda Buddhism). By locating its font of revelation or contemplative insight in foundational sources, however, a culture confronts an almost inevitable difficulty. The essence of a canon is that it be stable, self-sufficient, and delimited. As Moses twice admonished his addressees in Deuteronomy: “You must not add anything to what I command you nor take anything away from it, but shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God” (Deut 4:2; similarly 13:1 [English, 12:32]). In the Bible, this so-called canon formula occurs primarily in the context of Israelite wisdom literature (Qoh 3:14; 12:12–13; cf. Sir 42:21; Rev 22:18–19). The association with any notion of canon, however, marks a postbiblical development. The formula actually has a long prehistory in the ancient Near East, where it originally sought to prevent royal inscriptions, including law collections and treaties (cf. 1 Macc 8:30), from being altered. In other contexts, it affirmed the adequacy of wisdom instruction. Only subsequently was it taken over by Deuteronomy's Israelite authors and applied to the Mosaic Torah. The formula makes it clear that its intent is to preclude both literary and doctrinal innovation by safeguarding the textual status quo.

With such fixity and textual sufficiency as its hallmarks, how can a canon be made to address the varying needs of later generations of religious communities?