ABSTRACT
The lack of direct evidence in the Qumran library for the existence of a well-defined 'canonical' collection has, at times, been contrasted to the explicit emphasis on an exclusive collection of Jewish holy writings found in Fourth Ezra and Josephus. The notion of 'authoritative collections', which are perceived as both normative and exclusive, seems to appear for the first time in ancient Jewish writings at the end of the first century CE. An important observation concerning canon lists is that they do not, in their own understanding, reflect or relate decisions made by the religious or political communities from which they spring. The canons they refer to are not presented as the result of some decision made at any certain time, a notion which would involve the risk of having, in some sense, a necessarily arbitrary character.
