The Canon of Scripture

  • Charmaine Askham
  • Sep 21, 2009
    The Canon of Scripture

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    This simply means we look at which books should be in the Bible. Canon, a Greek word of origin means ‘reed’ and which was used as a ‘rule’ or ‘measuring line’.  The word Bible or Biblion in Greek means ‘papyrus scroll’, which brings us to the understanding that the Bible initially consisted of many separate scrolls; today all bound together in one book.

    There are 66 book sin the Bible that was written over a period of 1500 years. The forty different authors who wrote these books taught the same central message that did not contradict those who came before them or after them. It is amazing when you think about it as they lived in completely different times and cultures.

    What makes the Bible unique from any other book ever written is the fact that it maintains a high standard of morality over a long period of time (it spreads over 4000 years of human history) and it’s message is plain enough for different people groups to grasp; from your academic to your rural tribesman. It is also infallible, meaning that it is the Word of God for man and it carries the authority of God in every sentence and line; it contains no error. It is the Holy Book above all other books and not just a holy book among many. Many have gladly accepted and obeyed and given their lives for it.

    Many have questioned this statement by saying that the authors were after all just human and not perfect, so how could this statement possibly be true? Brian Edwards in his book “Nothing but the Truth” answers this best – “The origin of the message belongs to God alone. It was received from God and although they wrote the God-breathed message in God’s words, they were personally involved in the message” Example – An army officer may send a warning to a platoon. The messenger is given a carefully prepared message which he delivers faithfully and exactly. The message is not his own, but the urgency of his voice and the excitement of his gestures are his own. The message has become part of his thinking and his action. So it is with human writers of the Bible. The message was not written on a piece of paper, but in their minds, and it became so much part of their thinking that it was their own message. They spoke it or wrote it with enthusiasm - it was exactly God’s message; given by men. The Holy Spirit moved men to write, allowing them their own style, culture, gifts and character, to use the results of their own study and research but at the same time the Holy Spirit did not allow sin to influence their writings. He overruled in expression of thought and choice of words.”   


    THE OLD TESTAMENT


    The Old Testament was the Bible for the Jewish community and was read and accepted long before Jesus was born. It was in fact the Bible that Jesus and His disciples read. Many may have doubts about its value and trustworthiness, but know that Jesus did not share those doubts. Jesus often pointed to the Old Testament, quoted it, never doubting its accuracy and authority.

    The Jewish people divided the Old Testament differently than we do today. They divided it into 3 sections:
    1.    The Law, which contained the 5 books of Moses from Genesis to Deuteronomy – known as the Pentateuch;
    2.    The Prophets, which include the early prophets Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings and the latter prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea through to Malachi;
    3.    The third division was called the Writings that consist of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Songs of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles.

    The Jews combined Ezra and Nehemiah as one book as well as the two books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. It is for this reason that we will find that the list of Old Testament books given by the Jewish historian, Josephus, amounts to 22, yet these 22 books contained all 39 books.

    Why only these 39 books?

    God’s Word make no mistakes, so why these books were so clearly accepted as the only books of the Old Testament will be answered by what Scripture says about itself.

    Moses was always seen as God’s representative in Scripture and under the Jews:
    The Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible) was written by Moses and throughout the Old Testament there is agreement on that point. Moses recorded the laws, the history and the geography of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. One sees that when you read Ex 24:4, 34:27-28, Numb 33:2 and Deut 31:9, 22, 24.

    God appointed Joshua to lead Israel after Moses and we see that Joshua (Josh 8:31-35) continued to read all the books of Moses to Israel. God used Moses as a ‘mouthpiece’ and scribe for Him.

    The Kings of Judah read the ‘Law of Moses’ to the Israelites. (You can read it in more detail in the following scriptures – 1 Kings 2:3, 2 Kings 14:6, 2 Kings 18:6, 2 Kings 21:8, 2 Kings 23:25, 2 Chron 17:9, 2 Chron 23:18, 2 Chron 25:4).

    The prophets reminded the people of the Law of Moses (Ez 7:26, Dan 9:11, 13, Ez 6:18, Neh 18:1). The Psalms give references to God’s law. Ps 119 is probably the greatest example of this. Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai and Zechariah all refer to the law, up to the very last book of Malachi (Mal 4:4). Remember that these authors lived in different times, yet still reference to the Law. It is clearly evident by this that throughout Jewish history the books of Moses were accepted as God’s law.

    (This sounds as if it is more of what was said about Moses than the scriptures, but understand that God always honours His Word and when He gave words to Moses or direction for the people, signs and wonders followed to confirm God’s presence and approval on Moses. Israel knew that Moses was divinely used by God). Moses did expect his writings to be copied and kept. In Deut 17:18-19 Moses spoke of a time that would come when Israel would choose a king and he said that the king ought to write down a copy of the law, and keep it with him to read all the days of his life and to follow it carefully. In Ex 24:7 we read that he read the Law to people and placed a copy for safekeeping beside the Ark of the Covenant (Deut 31:24-26). In Deut 18:18 God told Moses that He will raise up other prophets like him, so Moses knew that God’s revelation to man will not end with his death. He even warned against false prophets.

    The Prophets after Moses referred to each other’s ministry and reminded people that it was a word from God. Jeremiah in Jer 28: approved the authority of prophets who came before him; he reminded folk of Micah’s word (Mic 3:12). He was a prophet 120 years before Jeremiah.

    Ezekiel referred to Isaiah’s words (Ez 38:17) which came ±200 years before Daniel (Dan 9:2) read from Jer 25:1-12. Zechariah 1:4-6 referenced Isa 1:16, 31 as well as passages in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Zech 1:5,6 bears clear witness to the continuing value and authority of prophecy.

    Stephen Voorwinde in his paper ‘The Formation of the New Testament Canon’ says – ‘In the case of the Old Testament it can be convincingly demonstrated that Jesus placed His infallible seal of approval upon the canon as we now have it’ (Luke 24:25-27, 44 – 45). His reference to the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms reflects the traditional three fold division of the Hebrew Canon. On this point there was no quarrel between Him and the Pharisees. Jesus and His contemporaries agreed on the limits of the Old Testament.

    Evidence of the Old Testament outside the Bible

    (Quoted from BH Edwards – Nothing but the Truth)
    1.    The Dead Sea Scrolls. Found in the caves around the Dead Sea, they belonged to a Jewish community that lived in this area 130BC and 68AD. This means that those Dead Sea Scrolls which contain the Old Testament books comment on them and are the oldest copies of the text of the Old Testament and commentaries on it that we possess (Brian H Edwards).

    2.    Josephus (Historian who lived between 37-100AD). He said, quoted from Brian H Edwards that ‘Unlike the Greek, the Jew has never been so bold as to add anything to them, to take anything from then or to make any change in them’ – For Josephus and the Jews from his time, the Old Testament came from God through Moses and the prophets and when the succession, or line, of the prophets came to and end with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, so the Old Testament closed.

    The Talmud

    Teachings and commentaries compiled during 400 years after the death of Josephus by Rabbis are known as the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud supports the view of Josephus. “After the latter prophets, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel”. For the Jew: God’s revelation for scripture ended at Malachi. At that time the prophets, and therefore the God-breathed word ceased.

    The early church

    After the death of the apostles the early church accepted the Old Testament Canon as accepted by the apostles, but the order of the books began to change. Origen (one of the early church leaders) listed the books of the Old Testament and agreed with Josephus, except that he accidentally omitted the 12 prophets at the close of the Testament! It was a clear oversight as he agreed that there are 22 books (remember that the Jews combined some of the books). He listed only 21 books, needing the book of the 12 to complete his figure. He died in ± 254AD before he could do so.

    David Pawson’s comment is this concerning chronological order – “God did not arrange the Bible topically so that we can study themes individually; He arranged it so we can read a book at a time. God did not provide us with books of doctrine arranged systematically, instead He gave us a library of different types of literature, as diverse as poetry and history, letters and revelation in 3 different languages, Greek, Hebrew and a little Aramaic.”

    The Old Testament Canon is complete:

    “It was not a council of Jewish Rabbis, or Christian bishops but scripture itself that fixed the limit of the canon of the Old Testament. The Jewish Council of Jamnia in 70AD merely confirmed the books that were already widely accepted as canonical.”

    In “Revelation and the Bible”, chapter 9, Roger Nicole claims to have counted 295 references to the Old Testament contained in 352 verses of the New Testament. This means that nearly one verse in every two and a half quotes the Old Testament.  There is not one reference in the New Testament to a book of the Apocrypha.

    Why the apocrypha is not part of the Bible?

    Apocrypha is a Greek word meaning “things hidden”. Modern protestant usage apocrypha refers to all those writings which has been wrongly regarded as scripture by many in the church. The apocrypha was written over a period of 400 years. It consists out of 14 books. It is a group of Jewish religious books and it was written after the close of the Old Testament and before the start of the New Testament. The reading material is found to be a mixture of legend and history and fantasy and fact. Some of the books found in the apocrypha are concerned with stories already found in the Bible. The apocrypha has been rejected as part of the inspired scriptures and the reasons for this are many. Herewith a few reasons:
    1.    Neither Jesus nor any New Testament writer ever quoted from the apocrypha, although they were constantly quoting the Old Testament. It was not that these writings were avoided by them for in Jude 14-15 there is reference to the book of Enoch that was written during the time of the apocrypha.

    2.    Josephus and the Talmud are clear that the apocrypha never had any part of the Old Testament.

    3.    None of the books of the apocrypha ever claim “hear the word of the Lord” or any divine origin. It seems the writers were careful to avoid their work being confused with scripture. The first book of the Maccabees on three occasions states that there was no prophet to be found in Israel.

    4.    There are historical errors evident upon which scholars admit to. The opening verse in Judith refers to Nebuchadnezzar as king “in Nineveh” instead of Babylon. 2 Maccabees 12:40-45 claims not only the right but the great value for praying for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin – a thought never found in scripture and clearly contrary to teachings in the Old and New Testament.  

    NEW TESTAMENT

     

    Introduction

    Pseudographa (false writings) appeared as soon as New Testament letters were written. For this reason it was important for the church to know which books were divinely authoritive. They did not give any books authority to be part of scripture, but recognized the authority of the books. This is an important point to remember so that we understand that the New Testament did not happen by accident neither was it decided by the church. The New Testament speaks with an authority and accuracy that are totally unknown in other writings – thereby bearing witness to itself.  The Christians were by no means confused as we are often led to believe; they had clear principles to guide them in knowing which books were divinely inspired.

    How did the Scripture come to the church?

    To answer that we have to understand that the church was never without a bible (or “canon”) and it did not repudiate the authority of the Old Testament, but followed the example of Christ and His apostles and received it as the Word of God. The concept of sacred Scripture did not originate in the early church; it was an essential part of the Jewish heritage. Jesus established its authority by identifying it with the Word of His Father and the Christians had the same heart (attitude) towards the Scripture (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45).

    The early church made the Old Testament their own and that prepared the way for a new Word of Scripture. It was understood and accepted that God’s Word came through Moses and the prophets and it was recorded, preserved and taught. So for them it would be as important to preserve, record and teach the Word given through Jesus, the Son of God and His apostles (The New Testament by Glen Barker).

    The early Christian church did not grow up by natural law but was founded by the apostles sent forth by Christ to do so. The church regarded their teachings as divinely inspired and recognized their innate worth and general apostolic authority.

    It seems that subject matter, authorship and evidence of continued use within the churches all contributed to the ultimate recognition of a document (Col 4:16, 1Thes 5:27). It had to bear witness to Christ and His words. They believed a genuinely inspired document would conform to the truth which God had revealed through tested witnesses (Glen Barker).

    The early church received new book after new book from the apostolic circle in this way as “equally scripture” with the old books. One by one they were added until at length the books, thus added, were numerous enough to be looked upon as another section of the scriptures. Around 200AD we already find the terms ‘Old Testament’ and ‘New Testament’ (Formation of the New Testament Canon by Stephen Voorwinde).

    The church did not ‘commission’ or ‘authorize’ the writing of any materials. Holy Scripture remained the prerogative of God. This precedent was already established in Israel’s history. The nation never authorized its own prophet and prophecy. It owed its origin not by human desire but to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. In the same way God raised men up to do His will He selected the New Testament authors and the time and circumstances and person through whom the divine Word of revelation should find written expression (G Barker).

    Why only 27 books in the New Testament? 

    By what means were other books eliminated?
    One of the requirements that the church looked at was authorship. The writer had to be an apostle or had to write under the direction of an apostle or had to be an eyewitness and companion of Jesus (Acts 1:21-22).  The apostles were responsible for the New Testament as Moses and the prophets were for the Old Testament.

    Every New Testament book, except the Gospels of Mark and Luke, the book of Acts and the letters of James, Jude and possibly Hebrews has otherwise been written by one of the 13 apostles which include Paul.  Neither Mark nor Luke (who wrote Acts) was officially apostles of Jesus.  Tertullion and Papias, two early church leaders who lived in the middle of the second century AD said Mark wrote his gospel in partnership with the apostle Peter. Tertullion said – “Luke was a close companion of Paul and wrote Acts”. Irenaeus, writing around 180AD said that Luke was “always attached to and inseparable from Paul and with him performed the work of an evangelist and was entrusted to hand down to us a Gospel”.

    Around 230AD Origen wrote from Alexandria referring to Luke’s Gospel as “composed for gentile converts… the Gospel commended by Paul”.

    Luke and Acts were thus unquestionably part of the New Testament Canon, as the early church saw Mark and Luke as scribes for the apostles which was not unusual as in Rom 16:22 and 1 Pet 5:12. We see that Paul and Peter used others to write for them.

    James and Jude were the brothers of Jesus (Matt 13:55); they weren’t apostles but witnesses and were amongst the rest of the disciples (Acts 1:14). The book of Hebrews was believed to be written by Paul and because the early church leaders had little doubt about this, the book was easily accepted as part of the New Testament Canon. (Clement of Rome – Before the First Century believed this, as did Origen, 230AD).

    All 27 books meet the requirement that it had to be written or written under the direction of an apostle; none of the false writings meet this requirement!  (Brian H Edwards from Nothing but the Truth).

    False writings were quickly rejected by the church

    (By Brian Edwards – Nothing but the Truth).
    In 1740 a scholar from Italy published a document that was written in the middle of the second century AD, containing the oldest known list of New Testament books. Not all of the New Testament books are found on the list, but neither were there books that ought not to be there. It did contain a list of heretical books that warned against books not to be used; for instance Paul’s epistles to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians that were seen to be forgeries – evidence that the church took a strong stand against pseudographa. So, in a sense heretics helped form the New Testament; their off-best doctrines caused standards to be set.  

    The witness of early church leaders:

    We said the church recognized the inspiration and authority of the New Testament books – they didn’t make or decide on them. This is seen on their comments of themselves and their own writings compared to what they said of the New Testament authors and writings.

    Their own testimony:

    Not long after ‘apostle’ John’s death in 112AD Ignatius, a church leader at Antioch, compared himself to Paul and Peter saying – “I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man”.  

    Polycarp (perhaps the most influential church leader in Asia), in the time of the apostles said – “For neither am I, nor is any other like me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul!”  Almost all the early churches had this attitude.

    What was said of the apostles:

    Polycarp believed the apostles’ authority to be the same as the Old Testament prophets. (He lived during the lifetime of the apostles).  Origen’s New Testament list contained the 27 books we have now and he said ‘scriptures are God’s Word divinely given through the Apostles’.

    Clement of Alexandria said – ‘There is no discord between law and gospel but harmony, for they both proceed from the same Author’.  

    Tertullion on the apostles’ authority said – ‘In the Lord’s apostles we possess our authority, for even they did not of themselves choose to introduce anything, but faithfully delivered to the nations the doctrine which they have received from Christ.’

    How the New Testament books were accepted:

    The first official list was the Muratorian Canon put together during the second century; however it was not when the New Testament was formed. There were no lists but it is clear that earlier writers knew which books belonged to the New Testament.

    Clement of Rome in 95AD wrote in a letter to Corinth quotes from Isaiah adding a quote from Matt 9:13 and Clement called it scripture. Polycarp spoke of ‘sacred books’ and quoted Eph 4:26 as scripture (he too became a Christian in AD).  Both Clement and Polycarp’s writings were full of quotes from the New Testament.  This proves the idea that the church had no New Testament to complete the Old Testament for 200 or 300 years after the death of Christ, wrong!

    Within 20 years of the apostle John’s death there is evidence of the Gospels being circulated and read amongst the early churches. Justin Martyr who died for his faith in 165AD referred to the four Gospels, Paul’s letters (including Hebrews) and Revelation in his writings.  By 367AD Athanasius listed the New Testament as we have it today, except that Hebrews came before 1 Timothy.

    In 397AD, at the Council of Carthage, the New Testament books were placed into the present day order, recognizing the books accepted by the church with a growing conviction over 300 years. It did not decide on the New Testament.  “Our final appeal is not to man, not even to the early church leaders, but to God, who by His Holy Spirit has put His seal upon the New Testament. By their spiritual content and by the claim of their human writers, the 27 books of our New Testament form part of the ‘God breathed’ Scripture (Brian H Edwards from Nothing but the Truth (p173)”.

    Conclusion

    “The Bible is part of God’s way of salvation – it does not merely contain God’s offer of salvation, it is part of God’s act of salvation! It is no merely a witness to God’s revelation, it is God’s revelation. The Bible does not contain God’s Word, it is God’s Word. It does not become God’s Word when it speaks to us – it is always God’s Word!, whether we acknowledge it or not. The Bible is never dependent upon man’s response to it for its authority. It carries the fullest possible authority regardless of anyone’s response. The Bible doesn’t simply contain stories of God’s love; it is in itself an expression of God’s love! It is a book beyond error!” (Quoted from Nothing but the Truth – Brian H Edwards). Our belief in the Bible is a matter of faith, not merely reason.


    BIBLIOGRAPHY


    Books
    1.    Glen W Barker  - The New Testament Canon
    2.    BB Warfield – The formation of the canon of the New Testament
    3.    Stephen Voorwinde  - The formation of the New Testament canon
    4.    BH Edwards – Nothing but the Truth
    5.    FF Bruce – The canon of the New Testament