S3 E7: The Canon of Scripture

Season 3 of Spirit-Led Hope is all about the Bible. In this episode, Glenn discusses the canon of Scripture, the list of books that rule the Church.  He looks at how and when the canon was decided for both Catholics and Protestants. The role of  people and the Holy Spirit in determining the canon are also discussed.

This episode has a transcript. If your podcast player does not support transcripts, please go to the Transcripts section of https://spiritledhope.com/ . These transcripts have been edited for accuracy and are typically of higher quality than those produced automatically by many podcast apps.

Season 3 is part of a long term goal to study systematic theology. If you want to know more about systematic theology, or expand your study, Glenn is using the following text as a helpful framework to make sure the main topics are covered:  Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, by Guy P. Duffield and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave.  The book is published by Foursquare Media and Glenn is using the Second Edition published in 2016.  

Transcript

 S3 E7 TRANSCRIPT 

THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are looking at:

     THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

I want to preface this episode by saying that we are nearing the end of Season 3. We have covered many of the topics about the Bible that you would find in an introductory systematic theology course, and I hope you have found these episodes interesting and useful. If you want to learn more about the Bible, then I certainly recommend this as an area for study on your own.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE CANON

What does it mean when we talk about the canon of Scripture? Just to be clear, the word “canon” in this application is spelled c…a...n...o...n. It should not be confused with the type of cannon with a double-n that goes bang!

In practical terms…when we talk about the canon of Scripture, we are talking about the list of books that belong in the Bible. If you are a Protestant like I am, then your canon of Scripture includes 66 books…39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New.

These 66 books are the books that are used to rule the Church. In other words, these books have the authority of God, and Christians use these writings for guidance and doctrine. 

And here is the critical point, these books were recognized as having divine authority which moved the Church to place them in the canon. These books did not become part of the canon because the Church declared them to be canonical. Instead, these books demonstrated divine authority long before the decision was made to canonize them. That is a very critical point.

The process of deciding which books would make up the Bible, was long. It took hundreds of years and not everyone has come to the same conclusion. Catholics, for example, include some additional books, called the Apocrypha, in their canon. I find it interesting that the Protestant Old Testament includes the same material as the Jewish scriptures, but the books are organized differently. The Jewish scriptures have fewer books than the Protestant Old Testament because some of the books are combined, even though the text is based on the same manuscripts. In terms of canonization, practitioners of Judaism and Protestant Christianity landed in the same place by not including the Apocrypha.

The story behind canonization is a long and twisty one, that is far beyond what I am going to cover in this episode. Again, this is a fascinating topic and there is plenty of material for self-study. What I will try to do, is give a high-level view of how the Protestant Bible ended up in its current form.

TESTS FOR CANONICITY

Let us start by looking at some of the things that were considered to determine if a writing should be included in the canon. 

One test was to look at the author of the book. Was the author someone considered to be a prophet, or an apostle, or someone closely associated with them? This was very important when the New Testament canon was developed. Luke was a Gentile and not part of the original 12 disciples. But from the book of Acts we can see that he was an associate of the early Apostles. That association pointed to including the books of Luke and Acts into the canon of Scripture.

Think about the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments were said to be written by God himself. That pretty much guaranteed that the Ten Commandments and the Laws God dictated to Moses would be included in the canon. By association, anything attributed to Moses, who talked with God, would become canonical.

Another test was to check for historical or general accuracy. For example, if a book had provable errors with regards to historical dates, names, and locations, that book would be suspect. If there were anachronisms, that would cast doubt on the date associated with that work, which could indicate other errors.

Because the Bible expresses God’s heart, another test was to examine the spiritual content of the book. Were the writings spiritually edifying? Did the writings speak beyond human capacity and show signs of divine inspiration? This was a critical test. When we read the Bible today, and the Holy Spirit speaks to us, it is a reminder that this was one of the tests for canonicity.

A very important test was to compare the doctrine of each book for consistency. Was the content of each book doctrinally sound and in agreement with the rest? For example, as we will see in a moment, the Old Testament canon was developed much sooner than the New Testament. For a New Testament book to be included in the canon of Scripture, it could not be contrary to what was already accepted.

And finally, was the book recognized and quoted by faithful and trustworthy servants of God? For example, Daniel quoted Jeremiah. Jesus and the Apostles quoted and referred to many of the Old Testament writings.  In a sense, their stamp of approval was helpful to us in solidifying the Old Testament canon. 

In the same way, we can look at the New Testament books and see where Peter acknowledged the writings of Paul as scriptural. We can also look at the writings of the early Church fathers and see what New Testament books they quoted and used for teaching.

All these things were considered to help select the canon of Scripture.

THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON

Let us look now at the canon of the Old Testament. I find it interesting that the Bible itself, helps us to determine some of the text that should go into the canon. For example, before Moses died, he gathered the priests and elders together and instructed them to periodically read God’s words to all of Israel. Here is what we read in the book of Deuteronomy:

Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

Deuteronomy 31:9-11 ESV

In these verses, we can already see that the canon of Scripture is being established. The people understood that Moses was a prophet, and that what they were reading was inspired by God.

There are many other cases in the Old Testament where God told his prophets to write his words down. Whenever these prophets were recognized by the people as inspired by God, those writings became prime candidates for the canon. The people were also able to recognize inspiration in some of the writings of the priests or kings.

Obviously, the canon grew over time, but around 435 B.C., God stopped speaking through his prophets. However, there were other books written in a time span from around 300 B.C. to 100 A.D. These books did not become part of the canon but eventually made their way into the Apocrypha.

For the reasons I mentioned earlier, and others, the Jewish religious leaders did not accept the Apocrypha as canonical, and we know this decision was made before the birth of Jesus. Jesus and the Apostles extensively referred to what they called “the Scriptures” and would often say, “It is written” when quoting it. They quoted the Old Testament almost 300 times and never once used anything from the Apocrypha in a way to suggest it had divine authority.

In Luke 11:51, Jesus made an interesting statement when he mentioned the blood of the prophets who were martyred. He spoke of the blood “from Abel to Zechariah.” As you may know, Abel’s story is told in Genesis (the first book of the Bible), and Zechariah’s story is told in 2 Chronicles. Earlier I mentioned that the order of the Hebrew Scriptures is different than what we have in our Bibles. In the Hebrew Bible, 1 and 2 Chronicles are combined and are at the end of the book. So, when Jesus said “from Abel to Zechariah” it appears he was describing the starting and the end of the Hebrew canon. This does not include the Apocrypha.

Outside of the Bible, the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in the first century, also listed the books used in the Hebrew Bible. His descriptions match what is used by Protestant Christians today.

The decision by the Catholic church to include the Apocrypha as part of the Old Testament officially took place in 1546 at the Council of Trent. I do not profess to be an expert on the Catholic church, but I know that the Council of Trent was part of the response towards Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.  Some of the writings in the Apocrypha support beliefs Luther argued against, and this undoubtedly provided motivation for the Catholic church to canonize these other books.

THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON

It is much easier to determine how we got the canon of the New Testament because there is more information available. The New Testament books were written in the second half of the first century and widely distributed. We can see which books were accepted by the early Church.

The early Church knew who the apostles were and understood that Jesus had given them the authority to speak, much like the Old Testament prophets who they already accepted. The first Christians would gather to read the Old Testament, and it was natural for them to include readings from the letters of the Apostles. Any book, which was recognized as coming from an Apostle, almost automatically became part of the canon.

But not all books that we have in our New Testament today were written by Apostles. Examples of this are, Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, and Jude. But these books had a lot going for them because of the association of the authors with Apostles. For example, Luke (who wrote Luke and Acts) was closely associated with Paul. Mark was closely associated with Peter. And Jude, was the brother of James and Jesus. Some of these books took longer to accept than others.  In the case of Hebrews, the author of the book is unknown to us, so it may or may not have been written by an Apostle or an associate of an Apostle…we just do not know.

We do know that the early Church wrestled with which books to include in the canon because there are surviving lists of which books were considered canonical. For example, the Muratorian Fragment was written around 170 A.D., and it lists the books of the New Testament as something that is very close to what we use today. The unknown author of the Muratorian fragment also mentions a couple of books that are not in the canon today.

Irenaeus, who died in 202 A.D., was very concerned about heresies entering the Church. He also had a list like what we use today, although he did not include Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude. In addition, he called out other books (like the Gospel of Truth) as heretical.

What is clear is that the basic canon of the New Testament was established in the late second century, even though there were disagreements over a few of the books. The final list of books which we accept today came in the later part of the fourth century.  Athanasius compiled his list of 27 books in 367 A.D. and this was accepted by the Western Church in 397 A.D. at the Council of Carthage.

I find it interesting that the agreement on which books should be included in the New Testament is greater than with the Old Testament. With the Old Testament, we have the division between Protestant and Catholic over the Apocrypha. But that is not the case with the New Testament. Both Catholics and Protestants accept the same books as canonical. I believe Eastern Orthodox also has the same New Testament canon.

IS THE CANON CORRECT?

Because the canon of the complete Bible was not agreed upon until the fourth century, we might wonder how we know the early Church got it right. I think there are two ways to answer this.

The first lies in our human ability to use logic and reason. Especially with the New Testament, the early Church had the credible witness of many people to help clearly identify the New Testament authors. They also saw the lives of the authors, their association with Jesus, and how many of the authors died for their beliefs. From a purely human standpoint, it was not difficult to place many of the writings into the New Testament canon.

The same can also be said for the Old Testament. The difference, of course, is that the information and writings for the Old Testament are older. But we trust that the people living during the Old Testament era put the same thought and logic into selecting the canon of the Jewish Bible. The words of Jesus and the first Apostles confirm their belief that the established Old Testament canon was selected properly.

The second reason why we can have confidence in the canon is a supernatural one. And this is the most important reason. While we do have human effort on one side, we have the work of the Holy Spirit on the other. Just like the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, and worked in some way to preserve the Scriptures, we understand that the Holy Spirit pointed to the canon of Scripture. 

The truth of the canon is something experienced by Christians as they read the Bible. There is something different that happens when a Christ-follower reads the Bible that does not happen when reading other writings from the same era. This should not surprise us. In John 10:27 Jesus said:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27 ESV

When we read the books of the Bible, we hear the voice of God speaking to us. The Holy Spirit illuminates the words of Scripture, and we recognize the divine quality of the text. The Holy Spirit confirms the selection of the canon. 

I know I have said this before, but the books in the canon are not there because they were chosen by people. The books are in the canon because God first spoke through the words of each book, and people placed them in the canon to acknowledge their divine origin.

As disciples of Jesus, we have the privilege of hearing his voice every time we read our Bibles. May we never grow tired of that.

CLOSING

I have a lot more to say but this episode will get too long if I keep going. What we have not yet discussed is whether the canon is closed. Could God possibly add more books to the canon of Scripture? This is very important.

In our next episode, we will look at the closure of the canon. I think we are also going to look at what this means for evangelical Christians when it comes to other teachings like Mormonism or New Age philosophies. If we do go in that direction, my goal will not be to bash anyone’s beliefs, but to point out the implications of having a closed canon.

As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please email me at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritLEDhope.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

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And now…

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Until next episode, take care.

Copyright 2024 Spirit-Led Hope 

Acknowledgement

A very useful book for this Season has been the third edition of “How We Got the Bible” by Neil R. Lightfoot.