Joshua 1:8 (ESV)
8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
The neat package of books we hold in our hands we call the Bible has not always been accepted as we see it today. And the fact is, of course, that the Bible is not a book but a library of 66 ancient documents written by over 40 authors spanning more than 1500 years.
For much of the first century, the early church had the apostles as their authorities on doctrine. They were easily accessible since they were scattered all over the empire. If there was a major dispute over a doctrine, the church need only to seek out an apostle to settle the issue. As a result, while many churches had letters from apostles or copies of those letters, most saw them as instructional instruments within the local assembly. By 70 a.d., though, all but one apostle, John, was dead. Heresies were knocking at the doors of churches and sometimes settling into those churches. What could the bishops use as an authority now to refute these heresies? They rightly decided to settle on the writings of the apostles as the final authority.
Like today, though, heresies back then could be supported by Scripture passages taken out of context. One of the favorite passages for these heretics was 1 Cor. 15:50 “I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”
The Gnostics (early church heretics) believed Jesus was not physical, His body was just an illusion, so they used this verse to support that Jesus was not flesh and blood. The Judaizers and Arians believed Jesus was not God but just a good man. They used this verse to support their view He could not be God. So, not only did we need the teachings of the apostles, we needed all the teachings of the apostles. How do we know which books represent their teachings, though? There were dozens of documents present in the church at the time. Which ones were to be followed?
One early Gnostic, Marcion (84-160 a.d.) put together the first canon, a list of books he saw as authoritative. He believed Christianity was too Jewish and claimed the only inspired books were ten of Paul’s epistles – he left out the Pastoral Epistles – and kept an edited version of Luke where he removed all Old Testament references.
In response to Marcion’s canon, the orthodox church began to make their own lists. So far as we know, the first list of authoritative books by the orthodox church was the Muratorian Canon (c. 170). It included 22 books of the New Testament plus two other early documents, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. The Shepherd was accompanied by a warning that it was to be read for instruction but was not to be considered an apostolic writing.
So, the idea of a canon began late in the second century. In the years following, other lists appeared, adding other accepted books such as 1 Peter and Hebrews as the church grew. In 369, Athanasius produced the canon list we use today. That canon was officially agreed upon by the Council of Carthage in 397. Even at that council, the agreement was that the canon had been settled prior to the council’s meeting, just not officially.
The Old Testament was agreed upon over time by the church. Our agreed upon books are taken from the Septuagint which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament translated at least 50 years and perhaps 200 years before Jesus was born. The church did throw out the Old Testament apocrypha, in the Septuagint, though, believing them to be uninspired.
The New Testament books settled on by the church were not just picked out of a hat. By the end of the fourth century, the church had tests to retain inspired books and exclude the non-inspired books.
The first test was that of apostolic authority, was the book written by or linked to an apostle? Luke, Mark, and Jude were not written by apostles although they did have apostolic authority. Luke was Paul’s constant companion as was Mark with Peter. Jude was the brother of both Jesus and James the Just who is identified as an apostle in Gal. 1:19.
The second test was if the church had recognized the book as divinely inspired over the previous three and a half centuries.
The third test was if the book carried the power of God. Were people saved due to its contents?
So, the Book we hold in our hands today and call the Bible went through a lot of history, a lot of testing, and even a lot of battles to reach our hands in the form we have now.
Why is this important?
The history of the Bible shows it has been examined and tested over centuries to be sure the books it contains are indeed God’s Word. When we pick it up today, we can be assured it transmits faithfully the teachings of the apostles (Acts 2:42) and the teachings and words of Jesus Himself. All this appears in a library of ancient books inspired by the Holy Spirit. For more information on the transmission of the New Testament from the first century to us, please check out this blog post.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 