Sources: Mishnah Yadayim 3:5, 4:6; Tosefta Yadayim 2:13–14; Talmud Bavli Megillah 7a; Shabbat 30b.

The Council of Jamnia (~90 AD) is the traditional name for rabbinic discussions at the Yavneh Academy about the canonical status of certain Hebrew scriptural books — not a formal council in the Christian sense, but an ongoing scholarly debate with formal rulings on specific disputed texts. The books whose status was discussed: Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) — debated because of its apparent skepticism (“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”) and its contradictions; Song of Songs — debated because of its erotic content (Rabbi Akiva defended it passionately: “All the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies”); Esther — debated because it does not mention God. All three were ultimately affirmed. The Jamnia canon debates also implicitly excluded books that circulated in the Septuagint (Greek translation) but lacked Hebrew originals: Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, additions to Daniel and Esther. These become the Catholic/Orthodox deuterocanon and the Protestant Apocrypha — the canon divergence that the Reformation makes permanent. One important modern qualification: Jack Lewis (1964) and later Sid Leiman (1976) argued that the “Jamnia council” as a formal synod is a modern scholarly construction — the discussions were real but the idea of a single definitive council is probably anachronistic.