TruthMatters

Where Did The Bible Come From

What books belong in the Bible and what books do not?

The canon of scripture may be generally described as the “collection of books which form the original and authoritative written rule of the faith and practice of the early Christian Church”. This includes both the Old and New Testaments.

The Old Testament Canon:

The Old Testament is primarily about the history of the Jewish people.

The earliest written word of God was the Ten Commandments. God himself wrote on two tablets of stone the words which he commanded his people: “And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). Again we read, “And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God graven upon the tables” (Ex. 32:16; cf. Deut. 4:13; 10:4). The tablets were deposited in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. 10:5) and constituted the terms of the covenant between God and his people.

Jewish tradition indicates that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testement.

The Jewish religious leaders were the ones who determined which books were inspired by God and therefore should be followed. Those same books that the Jewish leaders accepted became what is called the Old Testament. There is no indication that Christ disagreed with the Jewish religious leaders about what books they had “accepted” as being inspired by God.  

History of the Jewish people written after approximately 435 b.c. included such books as the Maccabees. These writers in their own writings indicated that they did not believe that their words were from God. These writings are called the Apocraypha.

The Dead Sea Scrolls that were found in 1947. They did not contain any information about Christ or Christianity. They were written by Jews about Jewish things. They included every book, complete book or parts of the book, of the Hebrew Bible except for the book of Ester. 

The Apocrypha:

“Apocrypha” signifies a group of books or parts of books that are not part of the original Jewish canon of the Hebrew Scripture. These were written approximately between 300 b.c.e. to 70 c.e. These writings were not accepted by the Jewish leaders as having the same authority as the rest of their Scripture and were not included with the other books of the Old Testament.

In 1546, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of their Old Testament.

The writings of the Apocrypha should not be regarded as part of Scripture because: (1) they do not claim for themselves the same kind of authority as the Old Testament writings; (2) they were not regarded as God’s words by the Jewish people from whom they originated; (3) they were not considered to be Scripture by Jesus or the New Testament authors; and (4) they contain teachings inconsistent with the rest of the Bible. These are just history books of the Jewish people.

The New Testament:

The New Testament is primarily a history of Jesus and Christianity. It consists of 27 books that originally were letters that were written by someone to other people or churches.

There were 4 criteria for a book to be included into the New Testament.

1.            The document had to be dated back to or near the time of Christ

2.            The document had to be written by an apostle or his companion.

3.            The document had to have a widespread acceptance among the established chruchs.

4.            The document had to have views similar to the other accepted documents.

The apostles, by virtue of their apostolic office, were given authority to write the words of Scripture. Those writings/letters were written to the local congregations (or individuals) and were accepted by the Christians and they were read and circulated with other congregations (or individuals). Some writers even mentioned other letters (II Peter 3:15-16, written about 66A.D.), or passages quoted from other letters (I Tim 5:8; Jude 17). The letters written by the apostles became most of the books of the New Testament.

The New Testament letters that were accepted because of their direct authorship by the apostles were Matthew; John; the Pauline epistles (except Hebrews); James;?? 1 and 2 Peter; 1, 2, 3 John; and Revelation.

This leaves five letters that became books in our New Testament (Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, and Jude).  The letters/books of Mark, Luke, and Acts were accepted very early because Mark was associated with the apostle Peter, and Luke (the author of Luke-Acts) was associated with the apostle Paul. Jude was accepted because of his connection with James (see Jude 1) and because he was the brother of Jesus.? Because of Hebrews 2:3, the authorship of Hebrews came into question by some; however, it was accepted because many in the early church believed it was written by Paul and because of its consistency with the rest of scripture.

Clement of Rome (c. a.d. 95) in a letter he wrote mentioned at least eight New Testament letters/books. Ignatius of Antioch (c. a.d. 115) acknowledged about seven letters. Polycarp, a disciple of John, (c. a.d. 108), acknowledged fifteen letters. That is not to say these men did not recognize more letters as being God inspired, but these are ones they mentioned in their letters. Later Irenaeus wrote (c. a.d. 185), acknowledging twenty-one of the New Testament letters. Hippolytus (a.d. 170–235) recognized twenty-two of the letters. Clement of Alexandria (c A.D. 200) stated Paul had written Hebrews.

The earliest non-heretical canonical list is the Muratorian Canon (c A.D. 170). This list omits only Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter and one of the epistles of John. There is a break in this manuscript that may once have included these books.

In June 325, the Roman emperor Constantine convened an ecumenical council of about 250 Christian leaders at the city of Nicene. Constantine gathered them to resolve the existing doctrinal problems that were causing internal squabbles among the Christians in the Roman Emperor. This became known as the “Council of Nicea”. The “The Nicene Creed” was a result of this council. The Council of Nicea did not change canon of the “New Testament” because that had already been established at least 100 years prior to this council.

A man by the name of Eusebius wrote a book “Life of Constantine”. In it he recorded that Constantine in 331 AD commissioned Eusebius to provide 50 manuscripts of the Christian Bible to be produced for the 5 churches Constantine was building. Two of these manuscripts are thought to have survived and they are referred to as the Codex of Sinaiticus (now located in the British Museum) and the Codex of Vaticanus (now located in the Vatican library in Rome).

In a.d. 367 Athanasius in his Thirty-ninth Paschal Letter stated that the twenty-seven New Testament books we have in our bible today were “divine” and all others should be destroyed. This list of books were already accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world. Thirty years later, in a.d. 397, the churches in the western part of the Mediterranean world had the “Council of Carthage” and they agreed with the eastern churches on the same list. These are the earliest final lists of our present-day canon.

The Vulgate translation of the entire bible was translated from Greek and Hebrew into the Latin language and it was completed by 400 AD.

King James authorized the translated the Latin bible into English in 1611 and this translation was named after him, hence the “The King James” bible. Forty seven scholars undertook this task. They were given the task of translation of words, NOT to set policy or determine which books should be included because this had already determined for about 1,300 years.

Should we expect any more writings to be added to the canon? The opening sentence in Hebrews puts this question to rest. The answer is NO! “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1–2).