published Saturday, February 25th, 2012 at 10:53 am by
richard
Today, we know that the Bible contains 66 books, 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books. But where did they come from? How do we know that these are the “right” books? Scholars have explored the issue of Biblical canon to help us better understand why certain writing were accepted and other writings excluded. But this is a big question for Christians or other people who want to view the Bible as an authoritative document.
Biblical scholars call this topic “canonicity” or the determination of which books are part of the “canon” of Scripture. The canon is the collection of books recognized as Holy Scripture. The actual word comes from the term for “measuring rod.” The canon are the books that are to serve as the “measuring rod” for God’s people.
By the time Jesus Christ walked the earth, the 39 books of the Old Testament were widely recognized as Jewish Scripture. Jesus Himself talked about Scripture and the Jewish historian Josephus (who lived approximately the same time as Jesus) mentioned the 39 books as authoritative Jewish Scripture. An official council in Jamnia in the year 90 A.D. also confirmed the same 39 books we know today as the Old Testament were Scripture.
Interestingly, the Old Testament books of that day were often presented on scrolls. The Torah or the first five books of the Bible might be on a single scroll, but sometimes other writings were on individual scrolls, such as the scroll of Isaiah. When books were first printed, the Jewish arrangement of the Old Testament put the Torah first, then the prophets. It was Martin Luther who arranged the books of the Old Testament in to the order Christians have today.
New Testament writings consist of 27 books written in a relatively short span of time, approximately 40 or 50 to 90 AD. Early church fathers had certain standards for inclusion of books as Scripture. First of all, the book had to be written by an apostle or be written by someone close to an apostle. Apostle, in this case, was defined as a man who had seen the resurrected Jesus and was known to be specially taught by Him. This criteria was similar for the Old Testament, which required books to be authored by people who were known to be prophets, kings, scribes, or other authorities.
Furthermore, New Testament writings had to be authentic, prophetic, and authoritative. It also had to be accepted by the believers and used by them. This may sound vague, but it happened that when Matthew wrote his account of the life of Jesus the text was quickly recognized as being authored by Matthew (one of the 12 apostles) and was accepted by believers who incorporated its authoritative teachings into their services. The same holds with John, Peter, and Paul. Although no one knows for sure who wrote the book of Hebrews, it was widely accepted by the early church and was incorporated into canon. Luke and Acts were written by a man who was not an apostle—Luke was an early convert to Christianity and a physician by trade. However, he was closely associated with the apostle Paul and many others in the early church and his accounts gained the status of Scripture as well.
The early church essentially “knew” what books were in the Bible, but the canon was officially adopted in the Council of Athenasius (in the year 367 AD) and the Council of Carthage (397 AD).
Sometimes scholars speculate that there were books that were specifically booted out of canon. There were later writings (such as the Gospel of St. Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene) that circulated in the Middle East. However, these books were never included in canon for a variety of reasons. In some cases, they were written late in history, some even after the councils that defined and closed the official canon. Second, some were clearly false; the Gospel of Mary Magdalene is generally recognized to have been written in the second or third century, far too late for the actual Mary Magdalene to have been the author. There was actually a wave of religious-style writing in the second to fourth centuries, including all manner of accounts about the life of Jesus. Many of these contradict the canon. So it cannot be assumed that because a book claimed to be written by Mary Magdalene or any apostle that it was so … much less that it had authority.
The Old Testament concludes with the book of Malachi and there occurred after that 400 years before the New Testament writings began. In that Interestamental period a variety of religious books were authored known as the Apocrypha. Although they were Jewish writings, the Jews never recognized them as having the same standard as the 39 books of the Old Testament. Protestants do not consider them part of Scripture, either. In 1546, the Catholic Church officially recognized them as part of Scripture and they form what is known as the Apocrypha.
Thus, the Bible was not established organically, although subsequent councils verified the standing of the official canon. Christians today consider the canon closed, that is, no new books will be added or deleted from the Bible. The Bible used by Protestants today is very similar to the Scriptures that would have been used by the early church fathers in the year 200 or 300 AD.
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