Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.
Welcome to Theology Thursday!
Today’s question:
How did we get our Bible? What about the other ancient writings that aren’t included?
Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
A few weeks ago, we looked at the question of why our Bible can be considered authoritative.
Today, let’s back up a bit and explore how our Bible came together, and why we can trust that these books are rightly included in our holy scripture, and others are not.
The Basics
The Bible is not one book, but a library of interconnected and cross-referenced books written over a span of something like 1,500 years by approximately 40 authors from three continents and in three languages.
These texts were written under a grand unifying mission (all roads of scripture lead to Christ!) but for different individual purposes depending on the author and audience, and include many different genres: historical storytelling, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, gospel biography, letters, and apocalypse (a type of visionary symbolic allegory).
While the Bible is not one book but many, it does present one coherent narrative revealing the activity of the triune God (God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in the creation, operation, salvation, and redemption of our world.
The 66 books included in the protestant Christian Bible are called the “canon,†meaning they are considered the standard, accepted texts that comprise God’s word. Christians believe the Holy Spirit somehow inspired the authors of scripture so that, though written by human minds and hands, these words are sacred, holy, and infallible, and therefore authoritative for our lives.
The Canon
Why these 66 books? This question is really two separate questions, because we have an Old Testament canon (39 books), and a New Testament canon (27 books), both with different historical processes and conclusions regarding which writings were ultimately included and which were not.
A great amount of research and a great number of books have been written on this subject, so in this space we’ll have to settle for summaries, but it is most important to have a firm grasp on why we can have confidence that our Biblical books contain the words of God, and other writings don’t.
The 39 books in our Old Testament have largely been a settled question since about 400 years before the birth of Jesus. Some faith traditions include a handful of other books in their Old Testament canon, but most protestant Christians landed on these 39 for the following reasons:
Very early on, the Jewish community elevated these 39 writings to the exclusion of the others. The other writings (a set of books generally referred to as the “apocrypha†which includes 1 and 2 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh, and others) between about 400 BC and the ministry of John the Baptist were not considered prophetic or inspired - and therefore not holy scripture - by the very communities from which they were written.
Jesus and the apostles likewise accepted these 39 texts and taught from them, so they believed they were authoritative holy scripture, too. There are thousands of references to our Old Testament texts in our New Testament.
Without getting too much into the argumentative weeds regarding how certain Old Testament books are dated, we can confidently and accurately believe our Old Testament is the Word of God, and any other ancient writings - while potentially valuable and useful as historical documents - are not.
The Old Testament books claim themselves as inspired, and the New Testament books claim the Old Testament books as inspired. Jesus himself taught that the Old Testament came from God. If Jesus is the Son of God, then we can accept the Old Testament as the Word of God.
But what about the New Testament?
The apostles and prophets of the New Testament considered their writings to be inspired by the Holy Spirit because Jesus told them they would be. Jesus did not write any books. He did, however, commend the authority of the Old Testament and promise to inspire the New. On several occasions Jesus promised divine authority for the apostolic witness about Himself:
In the Sermon on the Mount:
And when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. (Mark 13:11)
When Jesus commissions his twelve disciples for ministry:
When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:19-20)
At the Last Supper:
But the Counselor, 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 have said to you. (John 14:26)
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13)
Jesus gave his closest followers the authority to speak on behalf of God, and his Spirit guided them in doing so.
As they taught and led, they claimed to continue Christ’s own ministry (Acts 1:1, 2:42; Luke 1:3-4; Galatians 1:11-12; Ephesians 2:20; Colossians 1:26), they claimed their teachings had the same authority as the Old Testament scripture (2 Peter 1:21, 3:16; 1 Timothy 4:11, 13; 1 Timothy 5:18, quoting Luke 10:7; Revelation 22:18-19), and they made specific claims about the divine inspiration of their teaching and writings (Matthew 1:22, 2:15, 17; Mark 1:2; Luke 1:1; John 20:31, 21:24; each of Paul’s epistles; numerous other places throughout the New Testament including Revelation 1:1).
Here's that paragraph without the scripture references, so it's easier to read: As they taught and led, they claimed to continue Christ’s own ministry, they claimed their teachings had the same authority as the Old Testament scripture, and they made specific claims about the divine inspiration of their teaching and writings.
The point is, the apostles were commissioned by Jesus himself and given the authority to continue his ministry. The result is the 27 books we call the New Testament. These writings were revered, collected, and circulated in the early church as sacred scripture.
The inspiration of the New Testament is based on the promise of Christ that his disciples would be directed by the Spirit in their teachings about him. The disciples embraced this promise and ran with it, doing as Jesus told them to do. They believed themselves to be inspired writers of God’s word, and from the earliest moments of the church until today, nearly all Christians have agreed with and supported this claim.
Non-Canonical Books
Ok, so the 66 Old Testament and New Testament books are the inspired Word of God. How do we know other writings aren’t?
I’m running long here, so let me just summarize the argument against the inclusion of other writings.
The 27 canonical New Testament books were all written within about two generations after the time of Jesus. At the latest, these texts were produced by the end of the first century, though most scholars date them decades earlier than that. They were written by eyewitnesses to Jesus’s ministry, those who were very close to those who were eyewitnesses, and Paul, who was selected directly by God during his dramatic conversation experience on the road to Damascus.
The other writings that were up for consideration to be included in the canon are dated much later, and were written either by total unknowns, those who were not eyewitnesses, or those who were writing generations after the eyewitnesses died.
For example, the Gospel of Thomas (not written by Thomas the disciple) is dated as late as 250 AD, and is not a biographical narrative like the four New Testament gospels, but is merely a list of 114 “secret sayings†of Jesus, many of which vary wildly from the Jesus we read about in the canonical New Testament.
Other books - such as the Gospel of Mary, the Acts of Peter and Andrew, and dozens of others - all face similar problems: they are vastly different in authoritative claim, authoritative acceptance by the early Christians, and content, and they were usually written much later.
Closing the Canon
Another important point: our evidence for the texts of the New Testament - their truth and their validity - is in an entirely different league than the evidence for other writings from the ancient world.
We know famous authors and thinkers such as Plato, Homer, Tacitus, and Pliny through a very small number of manuscripts, and in many cases the oldest available copies are from the medieval period, centuries later. By contrast, we have hundreds and hundreds of early manuscripts of some or all of the New Testament, and their variations are small and largely insignificant.
For the first couple hundred years post-Jesus, the church did not have all the New Testament books gathered under one collection, rather these writings existed as individual scrolls and other types of parchment.
The New Testament canon was effectively closed in the 4th and 5th centuries when church leaders drafted lists of canonical books and church councils ratified them. The first known list of the 27 books that make up the New Testament was crafted in 367 AD by Athanasius, a bishop of Alexandria. The councils of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 then formally canonized the New Testament.
But! Know this: these early church leaders did not so much pick or vote on which writings they wanted included and then grant them scriptural/canonical status, they recognized the authority these 27 documents already possessed, and therefore excluded the documents that maintained no such authority.
Our 66 biblical books are the Spirit-inspired words of God. We can be as confident in this fact as we can anything about our faith and our world. Plenty of other writings hold historical or contextual interest, but they are not authoritative scripture. Which is good news, because there’s plenty in the Bible we have to keep us busy for the rest of our lives!
Ok, this was a long one. Sorry about that. It’s such an interesting and complex topic. I HIGHLY recommend you check out the resources below. They’re much more thorough than I can be here in this limited space. Happy studying!
Related Resources
Video series - Can I Trust the Bible?
Article - Explaining the Bible to Our Culture
Article - Who Chose the New Testament Canon?
Podcast - Why the Canonical Context of the New Testament Matters
Book - Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible
Book - From God to Us: How We Got Our Bible
To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
Welcome to Theology Thursday!
Today’s question:
How did we get our Bible? What about the other ancient writings that aren’t included?
Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
A few weeks ago, we looked at the question of why our Bible can be considered authoritative.
Today, let’s back up a bit and explore how our Bible came together, and why we can trust that these books are rightly included in our holy scripture, and others are not.
The Basics
The Bible is not one book, but a library of interconnected and cross-referenced books written over a span of something like 1,500 years by approximately 40 authors from three continents and in three languages.
These texts were written under a grand unifying mission (all roads of scripture lead to Christ!) but for different individual purposes depending on the author and audience, and include many different genres: historical storytelling, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, gospel biography, letters, and apocalypse (a type of visionary symbolic allegory).
While the Bible is not one book but many, it does present one coherent narrative revealing the activity of the triune God (God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in the creation, operation, salvation, and redemption of our world.
The 66 books included in the protestant Christian Bible are called the “canon,†meaning they are considered the standard, accepted texts that comprise God’s word. Christians believe the Holy Spirit somehow inspired the authors of scripture so that, though written by human minds and hands, these words are sacred, holy, and infallible, and therefore authoritative for our lives.
The Canon
Why these 66 books? This question is really two separate questions, because we have an Old Testament canon (39 books), and a New Testament canon (27 books), both with different historical processes and conclusions regarding which writings were ultimately included and which were not.
A great amount of research and a great number of books have been written on this subject, so in this space we’ll have to settle for summaries, but it is most important to have a firm grasp on why we can have confidence that our Biblical books contain the words of God, and other writings don’t.
The 39 books in our Old Testament have largely been a settled question since about 400 years before the birth of Jesus. Some faith traditions include a handful of other books in their Old Testament canon, but most protestant Christians landed on these 39 for the following reasons:
Very early on, the Jewish community elevated these 39 writings to the exclusion of the others. The other writings (a set of books generally referred to as the “apocrypha†which includes 1 and 2 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh, and others) between about 400 BC and the ministry of John the Baptist were not considered prophetic or inspired - and therefore not holy scripture - by the very communities from which they were written.
Jesus and the apostles likewise accepted these 39 texts and taught from them, so they believed they were authoritative holy scripture, too. There are thousands of references to our Old Testament texts in our New Testament.
Without getting too much into the argumentative weeds regarding how certain Old Testament books are dated, we can confidently and accurately believe our Old Testament is the Word of God, and any other ancient writings - while potentially valuable and useful as historical documents - are not.
The Old Testament books claim themselves as inspired, and the New Testament books claim the Old Testament books as inspired. Jesus himself taught that the Old Testament came from God. If Jesus is the Son of God, then we can accept the Old Testament as the Word of God.
But what about the New Testament?
The apostles and prophets of the New Testament considered their writings to be inspired by the Holy Spirit because Jesus told them they would be. Jesus did not write any books. He did, however, commend the authority of the Old Testament and promise to inspire the New. On several occasions Jesus promised divine authority for the apostolic witness about Himself:
In the Sermon on the Mount:
And when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. (Mark 13:11)
When Jesus commissions his twelve disciples for ministry:
When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:19-20)
At the Last Supper:
But the Counselor, 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 have said to you. (John 14:26)
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13)
Jesus gave his closest followers the authority to speak on behalf of God, and his Spirit guided them in doing so.
As they taught and led, they claimed to continue Christ’s own ministry (Acts 1:1, 2:42; Luke 1:3-4; Galatians 1:11-12; Ephesians 2:20; Colossians 1:26), they claimed their teachings had the same authority as the Old Testament scripture (2 Peter 1:21, 3:16; 1 Timothy 4:11, 13; 1 Timothy 5:18, quoting Luke 10:7; Revelation 22:18-19), and they made specific claims about the divine inspiration of their teaching and writings (Matthew 1:22, 2:15, 17; Mark 1:2; Luke 1:1; John 20:31, 21:24; each of Paul’s epistles; numerous other places throughout the New Testament including Revelation 1:1).
Here's that paragraph without the scripture references, so it's easier to read: As they taught and led, they claimed to continue Christ’s own ministry, they claimed their teachings had the same authority as the Old Testament scripture, and they made specific claims about the divine inspiration of their teaching and writings.
The point is, the apostles were commissioned by Jesus himself and given the authority to continue his ministry. The result is the 27 books we call the New Testament. These writings were revered, collected, and circulated in the early church as sacred scripture.
The inspiration of the New Testament is based on the promise of Christ that his disciples would be directed by the Spirit in their teachings about him. The disciples embraced this promise and ran with it, doing as Jesus told them to do. They believed themselves to be inspired writers of God’s word, and from the earliest moments of the church until today, nearly all Christians have agreed with and supported this claim.
Non-Canonical Books
Ok, so the 66 Old Testament and New Testament books are the inspired Word of God. How do we know other writings aren’t?
I’m running long here, so let me just summarize the argument against the inclusion of other writings.
The 27 canonical New Testament books were all written within about two generations after the time of Jesus. At the latest, these texts were produced by the end of the first century, though most scholars date them decades earlier than that. They were written by eyewitnesses to Jesus’s ministry, those who were very close to those who were eyewitnesses, and Paul, who was selected directly by God during his dramatic conversation experience on the road to Damascus.
The other writings that were up for consideration to be included in the canon are dated much later, and were written either by total unknowns, those who were not eyewitnesses, or those who were writing generations after the eyewitnesses died.
For example, the Gospel of Thomas (not written by Thomas the disciple) is dated as late as 250 AD, and is not a biographical narrative like the four New Testament gospels, but is merely a list of 114 “secret sayings†of Jesus, many of which vary wildly from the Jesus we read about in the canonical New Testament.
Other books - such as the Gospel of Mary, the Acts of Peter and Andrew, and dozens of others - all face similar problems: they are vastly different in authoritative claim, authoritative acceptance by the early Christians, and content, and they were usually written much later.
Closing the Canon
Another important point: our evidence for the texts of the New Testament - their truth and their validity - is in an entirely different league than the evidence for other writings from the ancient world.
We know famous authors and thinkers such as Plato, Homer, Tacitus, and Pliny through a very small number of manuscripts, and in many cases the oldest available copies are from the medieval period, centuries later. By contrast, we have hundreds and hundreds of early manuscripts of some or all of the New Testament, and their variations are small and largely insignificant.
For the first couple hundred years post-Jesus, the church did not have all the New Testament books gathered under one collection, rather these writings existed as individual scrolls and other types of parchment.
The New Testament canon was effectively closed in the 4th and 5th centuries when church leaders drafted lists of canonical books and church councils ratified them. The first known list of the 27 books that make up the New Testament was crafted in 367 AD by Athanasius, a bishop of Alexandria. The councils of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 then formally canonized the New Testament.
But! Know this: these early church leaders did not so much pick or vote on which writings they wanted included and then grant them scriptural/canonical status, they recognized the authority these 27 documents already possessed, and therefore excluded the documents that maintained no such authority.
Our 66 biblical books are the Spirit-inspired words of God. We can be as confident in this fact as we can anything about our faith and our world. Plenty of other writings hold historical or contextual interest, but they are not authoritative scripture. Which is good news, because there’s plenty in the Bible we have to keep us busy for the rest of our lives!
Ok, this was a long one. Sorry about that. It’s such an interesting and complex topic. I HIGHLY recommend you check out the resources below. They’re much more thorough than I can be here in this limited space. Happy studying!
Related Resources
Video series - Can I Trust the Bible?
Article - Explaining the Bible to Our Culture
Article - Who Chose the New Testament Canon?
Podcast - Why the Canonical Context of the New Testament Matters
Book - Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible
Book - From God to Us: How We Got Our Bible
To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
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