Canon of the Bible

What is the Bible? In his book Church History in Plain Language, Bruce Shelley says, “The Bible [derived from the Greek word Biblia - which means “The Books” - and later morphed, at the suggestion of Jerome in the fourth century, to singular form - meaning “The Book”] contains two portions: the Old Testament, which the early Christians claimed - along with the Jews - and the New Testament, which the early Christians produced - in spite of the Jews. The Old Testament promised; the New Testament fulfilled” (p. 58).

Shelley goes on, “The word for the special place these books occupy in Christianity is canon. The term from the Greek language originally meant ‘a measuring rod’ or, as we might say, ‘a ruler.’ It was a standard for judging something straight. So the idea transferred to a list of books that constituted the standard or ‘rule’ of the churches. These were the books read publicly in the congregations because they had a special authority of God on them” (p. 58).

In his book The Good Book, Peter J. Gomes answers the question from a different angle. He says, “[T]he Bible is not a book but a collection of books, in fact, a library of books. Sixty-six separate books have been collected from writings of ancient Hebrews and early Christians, and by a rational editorial process have been brought together over a period of centuries to form the book we now know as the Bible” (p. 13).

Gomes continues, “Although Hebrew scripture [Old Testament] takes different forms - poetry, history, law, and wisdom - the subject is always the same: the relationship between God’s people and their God…. The scripture of the Jewish people does not simply record historical facts, but by its interpretation of history, the Jewish scripture seeks to ask and to answer the fundamental questions of human existence. Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life? What does it mean to be good? What is evil, and how do I deal with it? How do I deal with death? These are both individual questions and, with regard to the Jewish people, also public and communal questions…. [15] This authoritative listing is referred to as a canon and evolved between A.D. 70 and 135 into its present form by a process of rabbinical councils…. [16] The Christian scriptures were chosen from a wide range of early Christian writings, and the final product, the present canon, represents the consensus of usage and dignity confirmed by the earliest churches in A.D. 367 [and was ultimately settled at the Third Council at Carthage in A.D. 397]” (pp. 14-16).

Why did Israel preserve the stories and scrolls that eventually became the Christian Old Testament? According to Daniel Fuller in The Unity of the Bible, “The likeliest reason that Israel preserved its literature so well was the people’s strong conviction that God had founded it as a nation through Abraham and had often intervened in its history to save it from destruction, because he was going to fulfill his promise to Abraham that in Israel all the nations of the world would eventually be blessed. Such happenings were far too significant to be forgotten and so impressive that the people developed a literature recounting God’s dealings with them” (p. 33). Fuller continues, “Ever historian is faced with the problem of explaining Israel’s unique conviction about its relationship to God, for it is axiomatic that every effect much have a commensurate cause. I argue that Israel’s holding to such a conviction, and carefully preserving the literature telling of the sequence and meaning of these divine interventions in its history, cannot be explained by any natural circumstance in its past. But since every effect must have a cause, the conclusion can only be that God did indeed intervene supernaturally in Israel’s history and that the Old Testament canon is a result of a phenomenon that can be explained only by this miraculous intervention” (p. 34).

On the NT canon, Fuller says, “The churches knew that people became apostles only because Jesus had appointed them. They in turn could and did appoint elders and bishops, but had no authority to appoint new apostles. So when the last apostle [one who had seen the risen Jesus and been commissioned by him as his spokesman (see 1 Cor. 9:1)] died [presumably at the close of the first century], the churches knew that revelation had ceased and that now they must bring together the teachings and writings of the apostles and their close associates…. [Also] so many writings falsely claiming to be apostolic were appearing. The Epistle of Barnabas, the Teaching of the Twelve, and the Shepherd of Hermas, for example, all claimed apostolic authority, and so the church had to draw a line between truly apostolic teachings and those that were spurious” (p. 58).

* Note that both Clement, most likely the bishop of churches in and near Rome, and Ignatius, bishop at Antioch in Syria, distinguished themselves from the apostles. 1 Clement 42:1, for instance, says, “The apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Then in 42:2, he says how only Christ, and not a bishop, could appoint people to be apostles.

When it came to singling out which letters and essays were authentic, Fuller says, “Such decisions singling out those documents that ‘teach the truth’ were not made in some church council attended by representatives from church districts scattered far and wide, as is sometimes claimed. Instead they were made informally at the grass-roots level, by small groups of Christian networked with each other in household churches located mostly around the eastern half of the Mediterranean. No doubt the decisions of one network would be transmitted by a traveler to networks elsewhere. Thus there must have been many lists of the New Testament canon made up, but only two from the period are extant [one is from Papias, quoted by Eusebius; and the other is the Muratorian Fragment]” (p. 62).

Finally, it must be asked, What about the letters and essays included in the New Testament that were not written by an apostle (or that we don’t know who the author was at all - like Hebrews)? Fuller responds, “It [the canon] readily admitted writings composed by nonapostles who worked in close association with an apostle [and corresponded to “The Rule of Faith” - meaning its teachings did not go against previously accepted teachings of outright apostles. Thus Luke, who wrote his gospel and Acts, has more in writing in the New Testament than any other author” (p. 66).

In his book A Short History of Christianity, Stephen Tomkins, pays more attention to the competing sects as the driving force behind solidifying the New Testament canon. He says, “The Ebionites rejected the works of Paul and perhaps Luke too as unapostolic, while the Marcionites accepted nothing else. Moreover, the gnostics soon followed by the Ebionites, had a rapidly expanding collection of writings that also claimed to be by apostles. Many allegedly apostolic writings were emerging that seemed to support mainstream Christianity too, but were of dubious origin” (p. 31).

He continues, “And so it was that the bishops had to…draw a line between those writings that embodied the teachings of Christ and the apostles with all the authority of holy scripture, and those that did not, in other words, to create the New Testament” (p. 31).