How were the books of the Bible decided?

How do we know that we have the right books in the Bible – the Old and New Testaments?

Most people believe that the early Catholic Church decided which books were authentic. This is not true; it is a myth. The Church did not authorize Scripture, it just accepted it. It merely recognized and accepted the books God Himself had inspired and authorized.

Most of this post comes from Dr Tom Murphy who lives in Sydney, Australia.

Why do we believe that Scripture is divinely inspired?

Paul wrote, “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 23:16NIV). And Peter wrote, the prophetic message of Scripture “never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, although human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” 2 Pt. 1:21). Concerning the grounds for accepting the Scriptures as the Word of God, the Westminster Confession 1.5 states,

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

This statement approves of a cumulative justification of belief in the inspiration of Scripture. Highest weight is given to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit affirming Scripture as God’s infallible and authoritative Word. Christians experience God speaking to them through Scripture. They experience it as God’s Word to them. Its truth and authority are an implication of it being God’s Word.

For a historical argument, we can begin with evidence for the reliability of the New Testament documents; just their content. Do we know what they originally said? Then, once this is established, we look for the teachings of the historical Jesus within these documents and what we can conclude about the character and nature of the historical Jesus.

A simple inductive argument for scriptural inspiration would then go something like:

1. God exists.
2. God raised Jesus from the dead.
3. If God raised Jesus from the dead, God ratified Jesus’ teachings.
4. Jesus’ teachings were such that they could be plausibly interpreted to imply the inspiration of Old and New Testament Scriptures.

Note that (4) allows for blurry boundaries to the canon (books of the Bible), especially the New Testament, by speaking of books included in, but not necessarily coextensive with, the canonical New Testament.

Jesus’ giving His divine authority to the twelve apostles gives grounds for regarding apostolic writings as having that same authority, leaving us to inquire which books are apostolic. Very early on the Gospels and a collection of Paul’s letters were regarded as Scripture, on a par with the Old Testament. Whether books like Jude or Hebrews should also be included among the apostolic writings remains an open question as far as this argument goes. Fortunately, not much hangs doctrinally upon how this question is answered, since the Gospels and Paul are adequate for a full formulation of Christian doctrine.

What is the process of making sure all of the 66 books of the Bible are divinely inspired?

The Old Testament canon has never been in doubt. It is the exact list of books that the Jewish community has used for thousands of years. It is the exact Old Testament that Jesus declared to be inspired and authoritative (Mt. 5:17; Lk. 24:27). The only differences are in the order and grouping of the books. The oldest references we have to the Old Testament canon comes from the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote during AD 95 in his work Against Apion that the Jews recognize 22 books as authoritative; this list of 22 books covers all the Old Testament recognized by Protestants, with the exception of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. However, Josephus commends these books in his AD 93/94 work Antiquity of the Jews. The Old Testament Canon was closed with Malachi in about 425 B.C.

The New Testament books were considered authoritative from their very beginning. The New Testament writers recognized each other’s words as scripture.  Peter wrote, “His (Paul’s) letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Pt. 3:16). We have numerous quotations from early church fathers which quote the books of the New Testament as authoritative scripture.

At the council of Carthage (AD 393) the Canon was closed when they recognized what everybody accepted. So by the end of the fourth century, all 27 books in our present Canon were recognized by all churches of the West.  By the year AD 500 the whole Greek-speaking church had also accepted all the books in our present New Testament. God decided which books were to be included in the New Testament Canon by inspiring these books and the church merely recognized them as such. Christ’s apostles are the only official channel of His eyewitness teaching (Lk. 1:1-2; Jn. 15:27; Acts 1:21-22; Heb. 2:3-4). The eyewitness apostles lived only in the first century AD.

As mentioned above, we experience and recognise God’s voice in them. And historical evidence supports this conclusion.

Also:

– Matthew, John, 1 + 2 Peter, 1 + 2 + 3 John, and Revelation were written by people who were with Jesus.
– Peter calls Paul’s writing scripture (2 Peter 3:16), so we can trust Romans, 1 + 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 + 2 Thessalonians, 1 + 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.
– Paul calls Luke’s writing scripture (1 Timothy 5:17-18), so we can trust Luke and Acts.
– Mark wrote his gospel based on what Peter told him (1 Pt. 5:13).
– James and Jude were associates of the apostles and half-brothers of Christ (Acts 15, Jude 1, Jas. 1:1).
– Although the author of Hebrews is unknown, it was confirmed by the apostles (Heb. 2:2-3).
– And the Old Testament Canon accepted by Jesus was the standard Hebrew Tanakh, the 39 books that make up our Old Testament. He referred to the three parts of the Old Testament – “the law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Lk. 24:44).

But since we don’t know the author of Hebrews, how do we know it was divinely inspired?

As mentioned above, we experience and recognise God’s voice in Hebrews. And it satisfies the requirements given in Appendix B.

We don’t place writings from people like Clement of Rome on the same level as the bible, so how do we know the same thing shouldn’t be done with Hebrews?

The text of Clement of Rome (and all other contemporary writings from the second generation church fathers), differentiates itself from that of the bible. They cite books in the bible as authoritative scripture while saying that they themselves aren’t scripture; they exclude themselves from the canon.

And how do we know it was really Paul/Peter/John/etc. that wrote these books and not someone pretending to be them? (Like the gospel of Judas/Thomas)

The traditional authorship of the books and evidence for their historicity and dating has been documented by Krujer (2012), Bauckham (2017), and Carson and Moo (2018). Some of their main points are given in Appendix B.

According to Linn (2022), canonical books:
– Were written by an Old Testament prophet, an apostle or an associate of an apostle (Heb. 1:1; 2 Pt. 1:20-21).
– Their writers were confirmed by an act of God (Jn. 3:2; Acts 2:22; Heb. 2:3).
– Tell the truth about God (Dt. 18:22; Gal. 1:8).
– Have the power of God (Heb. 4:12).
– Were accepted by the people of God (Dan. 9:2; 1 Th. 2:13; 2 Pt. 3:15).

The later apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings (gospel of Judas/Thomas etc):
– Were never even considered by any corporate body of the church as potential canonical candidates.
– Were written far too late to be supported by historical arguments.
– And don’t sound anything like the canonical books; we can’t hear God’s voice in them (even if you are not a Christian, you just have to read these books beside those in the Bible to realize that the tone and teachings are completely different).

And what is the process for the Old Testament? – Why don’t we include 1 + 2 Maccabees, etc.

The Old Testament Canon accepted by first century Jews and Jesus was the standard Hebrew Tanakh, the 39 books that make up our Old Testament (Lk. 24:44). The reason that apocryphal books like Maccabees were not included is given in Appendix A.

And also, if we were to somehow find another letter from Paul (Like the letter to the Laodiceans from Colossians 4:16), should we then add that to the bible, or is it too late?

Such a letter would fail some requirements given in Appendix B, namely:
– Widespread and continuous acceptance and usage by churches everywhere. If it had been lost or unknown, then it was never canonical to begin with.

It seems unlikely such a text will be found; no early church writings mention such a text and there is no manuscript evidence. It also seems that we wouldn’t need such a text, we can formulate all essential doctrines from the existing canon.

Conclusion

Christians believe the biblical canon was divinely authored and therefore is completely trustworthy.

Appendix A: What about the Apocrypha?

Apocrypha is a term that comes from the Greek word apokrypha, which means “things that are hidden, secret”. The Apocrypha (or Deuterocanonical books) are additional books that are found in the Roman Catholic Bible. Deuterocanonical means “second canon”. The Apocrypha includes seven extra books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and 1 & 2 Maccabees, as well as additional sections to the books of Esther and Daniel. These books were written in the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew. The Apocrypha is about the size of the New Testament.

The Apocrypha includes some specific Roman Catholic doctrines, such as purgatory and prayer for the dead (2 Maccabees 12:39-46), and salvation by works (almsgiving – Tobit 12:9). The Roman Catholic Church officially recognized these books as scripture in AD 1546, only 29 years after Martin Luther criticized these doctrines as unbiblical.

Some reasons why the Apocrypha is not part of the biblical canon are:
– The Jews and the early church never recognized the Apocrypha as part of Scripture.
– Jesus and the apostles never referred to it and never endorsed it.
– The Apocrypha itself never claimed to be inspired.
– The New Testament never quoted the Apocrypha.
– There are many proven errors and contradictions in the Apocrypha.
– The books of the Apocrypha are not historically accurate.
– In Matthew 23:35, Jesus implied that the close of the Old Testament historical scripture was the death of Zechariah (400 B.C.). This excludes any books written after Malachi and before the New Testament.

Most Hebrew scholars consider the Apocrypha to be good historical and religious documents, but not on the same level as the Hebrew Scriptures.

Appendix B: Books on the canon of the Bible

Carson and Moo (2018) includes a chapter on the New Testament canon. God is a self-disclosing, speaking, covenant-keeping God who has supremely revealed Himself in a historical figure, Jesus the Messiah, which establishes the necessity of the canon and, implicitly, its closure.

By the fourth century AD, the word “canon” came to refer to the list of books that constitute the Old and New Testaments. The usage of the books by the early Christians established the canon. Writings by the Church Fathers shows that:
– The Gospels, Acts, the thirteen Paulines, 1 Peter, and 1 John were universally accepted very early.
– Most of the other books were already established by the time of Eusebius (c. AD 260–340).

The main criteria used by the church in discussions as to what books were canonical were:
– Conformity with Christian truth recognized as normative in the churches (orthodox, not heretical).
– Association with an apostle.
– Widespread and continuous acceptance and usage by churches everywhere.

Kruger (2012) claimed that the biblical canon is self-authenticating. The canon, as God’s Word, is not just true, but the criterion of truth. It is an ultimate authority. For ultimate authorities to be ultimate authorities, they have to be the standard for their own authentication. This requires:
– Providential exposure (the church must be exposed to these books). If they are lost or unknown, then they were never canonical books to begin with.
– Attributes of canonicity (distinguish canonical books from all other books).
– Internal testimony of the Holy Spirit (the Holy Spirit produces belief that these books are from God).

He also stated that the three main attributes of canonicity are:
– divine qualities (one cannot recognize these marks without the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit),
– apostolic origins (with apostolic content and derived from the foundational period of the church), and
– corporate acceptance by Christians.
This is similar to the criteria in Carson and Moo (2018).

Bauckham (2017) emphasised that the gospels were eye-witness accounts. He contends that the texts of the gospels are close to the eyewitness reports of the words and deeds of Jesus. The gospels claim to be closely based on eyewitness testimony (p. 656).

“The gospels are historically trustworthy at the same time as being testimonies of faith. They give us Jesus interpreted – interpreted from the perspectives of the eyewitnesses and the Gospel writers” (p. 659).

“For practical reasons titles for the Gospels must have been used as soon as a local Christian community had more than one Gospel and therefore needed to distinguish one from another” (p. 574). So the gospels did not circulate as anonymous works.

The Gospels were written within living memory of the events they recount (p. 28). So there is a direct of relationship between the eyewitnesses and the Gospel texts. This differs from the assumption of form criticism that the traditions about Jesus, his acts and his words, passed through a long process of oral tradition in the early Christian communities and reached the writers of the Gospels only at a late stage of this process.

Form criticism and redaction criticism, assume that the traditions in the Gospel are the product of a long and complex tradition history (p. 258). But this idea has been discredited.

References

Bauckham, R (2017) “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” [2nd ed.], William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Carson, D A, Moo, D J (2018) An Introduction to the New Testament” [2nd ed], Zondervan.

Craig, W L (2021) Grounds for belief in Biblical inspiration

Kruger, M J (2012) “Canon revisited: establishing the origins and authority of the New Testament books”, Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.

Linn, T (2022) “Development of the canon of scripture”.

Acknowledgement

Most of the answers and references in this blogpost were provided by Dr Tom Murphy (a chemist) who lives in Sydney, Australia.

Also see:
Do we have the right Bible?
Can we trust our Bibles? How the Bible came to us.
Is the New Testament reliable?
Mind the gap

Written, September 2023