The Biblical Canon

Some time back, I wrote an article for our local church Magazine, the messenger. Sadly, I was limited for space, but here is the unamended article  I originally wrote before I had to pare it down for publication.

“All Scripture is inspired of God” reads a verse of the NT, according to one translation. Yet it’s a fact that the Bible is a compilation of 66 different books, and neither Paul nor anyone else gives a checklist of what ought to be in it. later on , though , several different people gave us a list of what was in ~their~ Bible.

Take a look at the following:

AD200 (Muratorian)   AD250 (Origen)     AD300 (Eusebius)    AD400(Carthage)

4 Gospels                            4 Gospels                 4 Gospels                     4 Gospels                                        

Acts                                      Acts                       Acts                              Acts

Paul's Epistles                       Paul's Epistles          Paul's Epistles               Paul's Epistles

James                                                                                                        Hebrews                          

1&2 John                            1Peter                      1Peter                            James

1&2 Peter                                                                                                  1&2 Peter.

Jude                                        1 John                    1 John                         1, 2, 3 John

Revelation (John)                    Rev.( John )            Rev (John)                    Jude

Revelation (Peter)                                                                                         Revelation ( John)         

Wisdom of Solomon

These lists reveal what certain people were using as a ‘New Testament’, at different times and in different places.

The Muratorian fragment, from Rome, is the earliest collection of Christian scriptures we know. Yet it contains books we don’t use in our modern Bible. It is important to realise that some may claim that the original document is incomplete, with a fragment missing , that there are  still inclusions to the canon that we don’t have today.

Origen and Eusebius were both clerics, each one used a Bible that was fairly consistent with the other – yet each one mentions several other works on a separate list. Origen mentions Hebrews and James, together with the Didache and the Shepherd Hermas, among others. Eusebius mentions the same books, expresses his doubts on some, but specifically excludes Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache from his list, and from public reading. Finally, in the Council of Carthage ( AD 400), we see a list that is exactly like our modern new Testament. Some may wonder why this is so, and what caused all these changes.

The answer lays it the fact that Christianity spread literally by word of mouth at first. Only when the Apostles were old was anything of Christ’s life written down. The letters from the Apostles to various churches and individuals were also kept, as they were a link to the early church founders.

But different people cherished different things. James and Jude were very pro Jewish – they were Jews themselves, after all!  Yet the early Church went through a phase when they wanted to be seen as different - Christians, as opposed to being just another sect of Judaism. So, for a time, James and Jude were out of favour. James kept pointing people back to Moses, and quoting the OT – whereas Christians wanted to read books that talked more about Jesus. So, for a while, James was ignored by Christians until the Early church began to feel more comfortable about the Jewishness of Jesus, their Saviour.

So, what criteria did the Church use to establish whether a book belonged in the Canon? None of the Apostles ever gave us a list; however, some of the Apostles do quote from books we consider Apocryphal today. Jude quotes from The Assumption of Moses in the passage where he talks about the Archangel Michael, and Peter quotes from a book called ‘The book of Enoch’. When we read in the Bible of Jannes and Jambres, we may wonder who these people are, for they are not mentioned in Exodus. And indeed, they are not. However, they are mentioned in an apocryphal work, obviously known in the Apostles time, but excluded from our canon.

It was down to a few things - 

1)      Was it a work of the right era - Old Testament or Apostolic in origin?

The OT had always been regarded as the bedrock of the Hebrew tradition, but these new gospels and epistles were looked at more closely. Although Luke and Mark were not Apostles themselves, their work was known from the earliest years of the church. Mark and Luke were contemporaries of Christ, so they were in. The Gospel of Thomas for example, was supposed to be written by Thomas, but quite unknown in the first 200 years after Christ. This made it suspect.

2)      Was it hallowed by usage?

If a book had been widely used by many separate Christian communities, both to explain their faith to outsiders  and for usage in worship as part of a service,  it stood in a books favour. The Coptic , or Egyptian church still clings to the Book of Enoch today , but the Western Church , drawn from many places outside Africa rejects Enoch , even though it was quoted by an Apostle, simply because the Jewish community rejected it themselves, eventually.

It is worth noting that the Jews rejected a lot of earlier work because it was in Greek – by stating that they accepted only Hebrew writings, they cut the ground from under the Christians who wanted to argue that the Gospels were inspired also. The Jews lost Tobit and an awful lot more from the Septuagint, but considered the price worth paying. The Catholic Church includes Tobit and many more in its canon. Again , we find that many Christian communities were using Luke's works to expound and explain their faith , but nobody was using the Gospel of Thomas until much later.

3)      Did it present a consistent theological perspective with the books they already had?

Unless a book could be used to support or enlarge upon the orthodox point of view, it was likely to be excluded. The gospel of Thomas  had Jesus performing miracles as a little child, and this wasn't something that the more established works mentioned, and their theology made it very unlikely to say the least - the church went with a consensus of more trusted sources and excluded Thomas and many others.

Whereas many claim that God gave us the Bible we have today, we see instead that God gave us a Church. That church, down the ages, both collected and preserved its sacred texts, gradually shaping “Scripture” as it went. Today, although the books are all collected together, it is through translation and explanation of the texts that the Church continues to shed light on the Word of God. The meanings we give it and the conclusions we draw today may yet influence future generations in their thinking.