How do we know the books of the Bible we have are the right ones? Maybe you’ve heard this question or even asked it yourself. After all, there are the “Lost Books of the Bible” or similar volumes published? There have even been TV shows dedicated to the books which were not included in the Bible, the New Testament in particular. I’ll focus on those of the New Testament for this post.
Some of these “lost” books are completely bogus. They present themselves as written by apostles but were actually written long after the apostles died. Remember many if not all of the heresies we see today began back in the first three centuries of the Christian Church. During that time a lot of books were written by false teachers to support those heresies. The earliest books of this sort are called the Gnostic Writings and include The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, The Acts of Peter and others. Most of these can be found online as pdf files if you would like to read them.
There are others which have claimed to be part of the Bible throughout history. So, you might ask, “How did we end up with the books we have today?” Here’s how:
The early church used some wise tests and quality control to examine the books up for inclusion into the canon (set of inspired books) of Scripture:
- Did they have apostolic authority (were they written and/or supervised by apostles?)? Two of the gospels were written by apostles: Matthew and John. Two were written by traveling companions of apostles: Mark, who traveled with Peter, and Luke who was Paul’s traveling companion and questioned dozens of witnesses to Christ’s ministry in order to put together his gospel (Luke 1:1-5). Since Luke has the only description of some of Christ’s childhood, he may have even interviewed Mary.
Peter and John gave apostolic authority to their epistles. Then we have James and Jude who were half-brothers of Jesus Himself. Acts was written by Luke, and Revelation was written by John. So, we have apostolic authority throughout the New Testament.
This test in particular eliminated some of the very earliest writings that were being considered. The Shepherd of Hermas, for instance was considered for inclusion in the Bible but had no apostolic authority.
- Was the book in question accepted by the first and second century church as God’s Word. There may have been writings by the apostles which were not Scripture. For instance, some scholars believe there was a third epistle by Paul to the Corinthian church which is not included in the Bible because it was not accepted as Scripture by the church even though it had apostolic authority.
- Any book being considered needed to relate exactly the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. The books in today’s Bibles were used by the early church for teaching.
There are partial lists of acceptable books supplied by a number of writers beginning in the second century with Irenaeus. In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, included a complete list of the very books we have in our New Testament today. By the fifth century, both the Eastern and Western Churches accepted these books.
You might ask why it took so long to decide which books to include. The church saw the task as more of a discovery than a decision, and a very few books were yet to be agreed upon. James and Revelation were two of the last to be included in the official Church Canon. James included “faith without works is dead” which was misinterpreted by many early church scholars, and Revelation was extremely hard to understand.
Don’t get the idea that the church was not united behind the vast majority of the books we have today. The gospels, Acts, Paul’s epistles, and others were accepted at the time of their writing or quickly after. Peter points to Paul’s epistles as Scripture in his second epistle (2 Peter 3:15-16). Paul was still alive at the time. Just a few books were not agreed upon early on.
Could there be more books coming? The book of Jude says the faith has been delivered once and for all to the saints (Jude 3). Revelation tells us not to add or subtract from “this book” which many believe to be referring to the canon itself. Because of this, we believe the canon of Scripture is closed. No more books will be written to be included.
You may have noticed the Catholic Bibles have other books. These were added at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. The Reformation had begun producing Bibles in the local languages by then, and some of the Catholic doctrines were not found in the Bible. So, additional books were required in order to justify these teachings.
While Protestant Bible-based churches believe the Bible alone is the supreme authority for “doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16), the Catholic Church has three equal sources of authority: The Bible, The Pope speaking ex-cathedra (“From the chair.” This requires the Pope to sit in St Peter’s chair and announce what he is saying is inspired of God), and the traditions and writings of the church.
Rest assured, the Bible you hold in your hand today has been stringently examined and tested to make sure all the books are divinely inspired and all the divinely inspired books are in the Bible.
2 Peter 3:15-16 (ESV)
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
Jude 1:3 (ESV)
3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Revelation 22:18-19 (ESV)
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,
19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 