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Guest
Since its writing, the Scriptures have been amongst the most talked about (and contested) writings that have ever graced the earth. But especially in recent times, more and more have criticized the Bible as being written only by men and being stacked with some books while others were ignored. While this is not the case, the accusations against Scripture have been astounding in scope and breathtaking in their vitriol.
With that in mind, I thought a short primer (for lack of a better term was in order of how these books were recognized and selected:
The Old Testament:
With the OT, when God authorized the writing of a manuscript, the people of God recognized it as being such and preserved it. To draw an example, Moses wrote "all the words of the Lord" (Exodus 24:4), and these writings were laid in the Ark of the Covenant (Deuteronomy 31:26), as were Joshua's (Joshua 24:26), Samuel's (1 Samuel 10:25), Jeremiah's and Daniel (Daniel 9:2). As time went on, the number of books grew and people honored them as the Word of God. Example: Ezra possessed a copy of the law of Moses and and the prophets (Nehemiah 9:14, 26-30). This law was read and considered the Word of God.
Not all Jewish religious writings were considered Scripture though. Some examples are the Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13), Books of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14) and other books (1 Kings 11:41). Were these books inspired Scripture, the Lord would have insured that they were to be included in the Bible.
The canonicity (authenticity) of these books were not questioned largely by the Jewish scholars; the books were regarded as canonical as soon as they were written, and when properly interpreted are in complete harmony with the other books of the OT. The centuries have demonstrated that keeping these books in the biblical canon was a wise move.
As of 400 BC, the canon of the OT was considered closed by the Jewish with the prophecy of Malachi. We know this because 1) our OT is based on the Hebrew Old Testament canon accepted by the Jews, and 2) it's the same canon that Jesus Christ ratified by His continual references to the OT as the unbreakable Word of God. (note: Jesus never quoted any of the books of the "Apocrypha" such as Maccabees).
Keep in mind: the OT books were selected without the benefit of any "council" such as Nicaea to debate the merits or detractors of any of the books. They leaders who were responsible for the spiritual life of the nation recognized the books and selected them. That said, it was never a "select committee" that did so. And while a council in Jamnia in 90 AD met on the canon of the OT, all it did was to ratify what was already selected.
The New Testament:
The authority given to those who penned the books of the OT on the Lord's command was ascribed to the writers of the New Testament. This authority is not found in human intellect, brilliance or any type of speculation, but is rooted in God's character. Paul cited to the congregation that he was writing per the Lord's command, and could legitimately tell them that he was doing so (1 Corinthians 14:37).
The books of the NT were written around the last half of the First century. With the books, some of them were letters to individuals (such as the letter to Philemon), and others being letters to the local churches. Then there were the books that had been were written to larger audiences (such as Europe and East Asia). Because of this, we need to understand that not all the books were immediately available as copies to all the churches due to travel being as fast as one could walk, ride a horse or sail; communication was also limited as well during this time and depended on travel as opposed to today's technology. So, it took some time before the final number of NT books were ratified and the canon was set.
Selecting and verifying Scripture was important to the early believers, and as long as the Apostles were alive they could verify everything (Luke 1:2, Acts 1:21-22). Had Paul or Luke been fakes or unreliable, they would have quickly been decried by Peter, John, James and those who had been there for Jesus' miracles and heard His teaching during His ministry on Earth.
For example, John said:
"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. " .(1 John 2-3 NASB, emphasis mine)
Peter was able to assure us that he had personally seen the Lord at the Transfiguration, his testimony being an eyewitness account (2 Peter 1:16-18) Apostolic authority was a final "court of appeal"; as they were the Lord's representatives on Earth and were commissioned to pass on the truth Jesus had taught them:
"These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."" (John 14:25-26, NASB, emphasis mine)
Apostolic Authority:
The fact that some books were accepted as Scripture is demonstrated in Peter's own words in Scripture: he possessed a collection of Paul's letters and regarded them as Scripture. Peter soundly confirms Paul's authority on writing Scripture:
"Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:14-16, NASB, emphasis mine)
Other books in the Bible confirm the authority of each other: Paul confirms Luke's writing as Scripture (1 Timothy 5:18 quoting Luke 10:7) and Jude quoted Peter (Jude 1:17-18 quoting 2 Peter 3:3) are examples. By the end of the 1st Century, more than 2/3 of our present NT was deemed inspired, with the remaining books deemed as authoritative even though they had not been fully circulated yet. When a heretic named Marcion in 135 AD decided to "publish" his own version of Scripture that completely omitted the OT and only selected a few books from the NT (Marcion was fiercely anti-Semitic), the Church was forced to respond and declare which books were authoritative. A document called the Muratorian Fragment, dating back to 175 AD, evaluates the various canonical books alongside those that were not deemed canonical. Although the document is mutilated by age, scholars have been able to identify a list of book that contain 23 of the present 27 books of the NT. It also listed some spurious (fake) writings ascribed to Paul that the author noted could not be accepted into the church. These books that were fake were not "banned"; they were brushed aside because they were fakes.
What about the Councils?
There is contention that the canon of the OT was not finalized until 40 years after the Council of Nicaea (convened in 325 AD). While it's true that the full list of 27 NT books first appeared in the Easter letter of Athanasius in 367 AD, the 27 books of the NT (along with 39 books of the OT), had been functioning as the rule of the church for 250 years.
As for the Council of Nicaea, the topic of canon did not even come up at it; Constantine did not decide what canon was. What was discussed at the Council was whether Jesus Christ (The Son) was fully God or not (a man by the name of Arius was spreading the heresy that Jesus was not). This, along with other doctrinal disputes that were tearing apart society, forced Constantine to convene the council. Constantine had no agenda as to what creed or doctrine was selected; he let the delegates decide that.
Arius was given the opportunity to voice his views. But the council decided overwhelmingly that Jesus was fully God and fully man, and that Arius' views on Jesus not being so were heresy (John chapter 1 pretty much blows Arius' views out of the water). The delegates recognized that if Jesus was not fully God, then He could not be the redeemer of Mankind; to say Jesus was created was to violate Scripture in a number of areas (Colossians 1:16, Romans 9:5, Hebrews 1:8, etc.). Once the divinity of Jesus was addressed and confirmed, they then determined that Christ could be fully God only if He had the very same nature as God (This was expressed by Marcellus, a bishop from Asia Minor and representative of Athanasius, who was present but not invited to the proceedings).
That said, what Constantine did do was commission Eusebius to make 50 Bibles on good parchment by trained scribes to be given to the churches of Constantinople for use. But while we presently don't have any copies of these Bibles to see which books were in the NT, scholar F.F. Bruce (Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester for 27 years), "the answer is not seriously in doubt. The copies contained all the books which Eusebius lists as universally acknowledged...in short, the same twenty-seven books as appear in our copies of the New Testament today". (F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, InterVarsity Press, 1988)
In short: all the early church could do was recognize which books were inspired and which were not. It did not have the power to imbue a non-canonical book with any sort of authority, nor remove authority from a book that was authentic and had authority. They could only determine which books were legitimate; only the Holy Spirit, inspiring the book from the beginning, could make it authoritative. No council could do this either, and the process was not a "selective, deliberate committee with an agenda".
Selection:
Now, how were these books determined to have inspiration and authority? These were the criteria:
1) Apostolic Writing/ Sanction: The books were either written by an apostle or sanctioned by one. Mark was not an apostle, but his words reflect his association with Peter; meantime, Luke traveled with Paul.
2) Tying in to the Rule of Faith: the book had to be consistent with both the teachings of the Old Testament prophets and the writings of the New Testament Apostles.
3) Acceptance: The book had to have continuous acceptance to remain in the canon. While times may change, the truth does not. Any book can be "true" in it's time, but does that book remain true and in harmony with established Scripture?
On that specific note: the Church is headed by Christ, and made up of fallible humans. And while humans do make mistakes, it is an infallible God who inspired a fallible Church to compile an infallible list of books that comprise our New Testament. And God is not so weak that he cannot ensure that man doesn't have His Word; if God is truly Almighty, He is capable of making sure the books of Scripture correspond to what He wants in there. It then stands to reason that the Lord is more than able to ensure that man would receive a Bible that was not corrupted or slanted towards a particular viewpoint or theology.
So, with that said: when compared to other historical manuscripts of the times, Scripture emerges with flying colors. And with the selection process, there was no hidden agenda (despite the prognostications of critics to the contrary). Scripture as we have it today in its major versions can be trusted...
...as can the God who loved us enough to not only give it to us, but who loved us enough to die for us.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
With that in mind, I thought a short primer (for lack of a better term was in order of how these books were recognized and selected:
The Old Testament:
With the OT, when God authorized the writing of a manuscript, the people of God recognized it as being such and preserved it. To draw an example, Moses wrote "all the words of the Lord" (Exodus 24:4), and these writings were laid in the Ark of the Covenant (Deuteronomy 31:26), as were Joshua's (Joshua 24:26), Samuel's (1 Samuel 10:25), Jeremiah's and Daniel (Daniel 9:2). As time went on, the number of books grew and people honored them as the Word of God. Example: Ezra possessed a copy of the law of Moses and and the prophets (Nehemiah 9:14, 26-30). This law was read and considered the Word of God.
Not all Jewish religious writings were considered Scripture though. Some examples are the Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13), Books of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14) and other books (1 Kings 11:41). Were these books inspired Scripture, the Lord would have insured that they were to be included in the Bible.
The canonicity (authenticity) of these books were not questioned largely by the Jewish scholars; the books were regarded as canonical as soon as they were written, and when properly interpreted are in complete harmony with the other books of the OT. The centuries have demonstrated that keeping these books in the biblical canon was a wise move.
As of 400 BC, the canon of the OT was considered closed by the Jewish with the prophecy of Malachi. We know this because 1) our OT is based on the Hebrew Old Testament canon accepted by the Jews, and 2) it's the same canon that Jesus Christ ratified by His continual references to the OT as the unbreakable Word of God. (note: Jesus never quoted any of the books of the "Apocrypha" such as Maccabees).
Keep in mind: the OT books were selected without the benefit of any "council" such as Nicaea to debate the merits or detractors of any of the books. They leaders who were responsible for the spiritual life of the nation recognized the books and selected them. That said, it was never a "select committee" that did so. And while a council in Jamnia in 90 AD met on the canon of the OT, all it did was to ratify what was already selected.
The New Testament:
The authority given to those who penned the books of the OT on the Lord's command was ascribed to the writers of the New Testament. This authority is not found in human intellect, brilliance or any type of speculation, but is rooted in God's character. Paul cited to the congregation that he was writing per the Lord's command, and could legitimately tell them that he was doing so (1 Corinthians 14:37).
The books of the NT were written around the last half of the First century. With the books, some of them were letters to individuals (such as the letter to Philemon), and others being letters to the local churches. Then there were the books that had been were written to larger audiences (such as Europe and East Asia). Because of this, we need to understand that not all the books were immediately available as copies to all the churches due to travel being as fast as one could walk, ride a horse or sail; communication was also limited as well during this time and depended on travel as opposed to today's technology. So, it took some time before the final number of NT books were ratified and the canon was set.
Selecting and verifying Scripture was important to the early believers, and as long as the Apostles were alive they could verify everything (Luke 1:2, Acts 1:21-22). Had Paul or Luke been fakes or unreliable, they would have quickly been decried by Peter, John, James and those who had been there for Jesus' miracles and heard His teaching during His ministry on Earth.
For example, John said:
"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. " .(1 John 2-3 NASB, emphasis mine)
Peter was able to assure us that he had personally seen the Lord at the Transfiguration, his testimony being an eyewitness account (2 Peter 1:16-18) Apostolic authority was a final "court of appeal"; as they were the Lord's representatives on Earth and were commissioned to pass on the truth Jesus had taught them:
"These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."" (John 14:25-26, NASB, emphasis mine)
Apostolic Authority:
The fact that some books were accepted as Scripture is demonstrated in Peter's own words in Scripture: he possessed a collection of Paul's letters and regarded them as Scripture. Peter soundly confirms Paul's authority on writing Scripture:
"Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:14-16, NASB, emphasis mine)
Other books in the Bible confirm the authority of each other: Paul confirms Luke's writing as Scripture (1 Timothy 5:18 quoting Luke 10:7) and Jude quoted Peter (Jude 1:17-18 quoting 2 Peter 3:3) are examples. By the end of the 1st Century, more than 2/3 of our present NT was deemed inspired, with the remaining books deemed as authoritative even though they had not been fully circulated yet. When a heretic named Marcion in 135 AD decided to "publish" his own version of Scripture that completely omitted the OT and only selected a few books from the NT (Marcion was fiercely anti-Semitic), the Church was forced to respond and declare which books were authoritative. A document called the Muratorian Fragment, dating back to 175 AD, evaluates the various canonical books alongside those that were not deemed canonical. Although the document is mutilated by age, scholars have been able to identify a list of book that contain 23 of the present 27 books of the NT. It also listed some spurious (fake) writings ascribed to Paul that the author noted could not be accepted into the church. These books that were fake were not "banned"; they were brushed aside because they were fakes.
What about the Councils?
There is contention that the canon of the OT was not finalized until 40 years after the Council of Nicaea (convened in 325 AD). While it's true that the full list of 27 NT books first appeared in the Easter letter of Athanasius in 367 AD, the 27 books of the NT (along with 39 books of the OT), had been functioning as the rule of the church for 250 years.
As for the Council of Nicaea, the topic of canon did not even come up at it; Constantine did not decide what canon was. What was discussed at the Council was whether Jesus Christ (The Son) was fully God or not (a man by the name of Arius was spreading the heresy that Jesus was not). This, along with other doctrinal disputes that were tearing apart society, forced Constantine to convene the council. Constantine had no agenda as to what creed or doctrine was selected; he let the delegates decide that.
Arius was given the opportunity to voice his views. But the council decided overwhelmingly that Jesus was fully God and fully man, and that Arius' views on Jesus not being so were heresy (John chapter 1 pretty much blows Arius' views out of the water). The delegates recognized that if Jesus was not fully God, then He could not be the redeemer of Mankind; to say Jesus was created was to violate Scripture in a number of areas (Colossians 1:16, Romans 9:5, Hebrews 1:8, etc.). Once the divinity of Jesus was addressed and confirmed, they then determined that Christ could be fully God only if He had the very same nature as God (This was expressed by Marcellus, a bishop from Asia Minor and representative of Athanasius, who was present but not invited to the proceedings).
That said, what Constantine did do was commission Eusebius to make 50 Bibles on good parchment by trained scribes to be given to the churches of Constantinople for use. But while we presently don't have any copies of these Bibles to see which books were in the NT, scholar F.F. Bruce (Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester for 27 years), "the answer is not seriously in doubt. The copies contained all the books which Eusebius lists as universally acknowledged...in short, the same twenty-seven books as appear in our copies of the New Testament today". (F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, InterVarsity Press, 1988)
In short: all the early church could do was recognize which books were inspired and which were not. It did not have the power to imbue a non-canonical book with any sort of authority, nor remove authority from a book that was authentic and had authority. They could only determine which books were legitimate; only the Holy Spirit, inspiring the book from the beginning, could make it authoritative. No council could do this either, and the process was not a "selective, deliberate committee with an agenda".
Selection:
Now, how were these books determined to have inspiration and authority? These were the criteria:
1) Apostolic Writing/ Sanction: The books were either written by an apostle or sanctioned by one. Mark was not an apostle, but his words reflect his association with Peter; meantime, Luke traveled with Paul.
2) Tying in to the Rule of Faith: the book had to be consistent with both the teachings of the Old Testament prophets and the writings of the New Testament Apostles.
3) Acceptance: The book had to have continuous acceptance to remain in the canon. While times may change, the truth does not. Any book can be "true" in it's time, but does that book remain true and in harmony with established Scripture?
On that specific note: the Church is headed by Christ, and made up of fallible humans. And while humans do make mistakes, it is an infallible God who inspired a fallible Church to compile an infallible list of books that comprise our New Testament. And God is not so weak that he cannot ensure that man doesn't have His Word; if God is truly Almighty, He is capable of making sure the books of Scripture correspond to what He wants in there. It then stands to reason that the Lord is more than able to ensure that man would receive a Bible that was not corrupted or slanted towards a particular viewpoint or theology.
So, with that said: when compared to other historical manuscripts of the times, Scripture emerges with flying colors. And with the selection process, there was no hidden agenda (despite the prognostications of critics to the contrary). Scripture as we have it today in its major versions can be trusted...
...as can the God who loved us enough to not only give it to us, but who loved us enough to die for us.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
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