Did the Church Decide Which Books Made It into the Bible?

[crisgon]

This is like J Warner Wallace saying we have the Early Church as a custody link to the past as to know what the early Christians believe. Yet when confronted with different doctrines Protestants are easily to dismiss the early Church.

[samknezevic]

The protestant view responds to what's "already there" ...that completely disregards how the scriptures "got there" in the first place. To say the Catholic Church is trying to control scripture is misguided at best and devilish at its worst. The Church, instituted by Christ, is there to help guide Christians on the path towards salvation. One of the ways they do this is by affirming scripture and safeguarding it from sinful actors who choose to employ their own interpretations and justifications for what scripture "is" or "means." The fact that protestants have continued to devolve into a sea of disagreeing parties over the last 500 years points to the fact that without a central, guiding authority outside of scripture (but which also exists to affirm the Bible's authority) Christians cannot reliably come to know the truth about what Christ taught. For example. Martin Luther believed in the Eucharist as the body and blood of Jesus Christ. You won't find a protestant today who thinks the bread and wine is nothing more than a symbol.

[philiphughes]

Nice to hear someone speaking the truth.

[BrosefWtheMosef]

Talk about circular reasoning. “We don’t decide what’s canon, we just describe what is canon as decided by God.” It begs the question: how do we know what God decided is canon? Because we (humans/the church) trusted our own judgment to decide certain books were “God’s canon.” You’re not really saying the church is never infallible. You’re saying the church’s discernment was infallible only once when church fathers somehow had the flawless revelation of what canon was by the 3rd century or so (and even then there wasn’t universal agreement).

[duckymomo]

Canon is not authoritative

The point here is that the lists do not initiate a canonical process, rather usually, they appear near the end of the process. By the time Josephus commented on “only twenty-two” books, it appears that the OT canon was long established with some on going dispute over Esther and perhaps Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes. Much of the NT canon solidified by the end of the 2nd century before a NT list was drafted.

The evidence for an authoritative list of (authoritative) books is not strong in the early period. Not only did early Christians refrain from speaking of their lists this way, but the variance between the contents of the lists themselves manifest that there was no single authoritative list of scriptural books. Furthermore, logically, the list would be a recognition or acknowledgement of books long considered authoritative scripture and there does not seem to be any evidence from the early period that a list conferred more authority on a book than it already possessed.

Even today, the New York Times Best Sellers List does not confer more popularity on a book than that book already had in order to get on the list in the first place. The act of recognizing a particular book highlights it as already possessing the qualities necessary to be placed on the list in the first place. Probably, the canon list defined more clearly the books, more or less, that already possessed authority and divine characteristics, which the churches had already long recognized. Perhaps a list of recognized books was useful to promote these certain books, but it did not add anything essential to them that was required for their inclusion in the list in the first place.

does a list of authoritative books imply an authoritative list of books, even though an author does not say this explicitly? Perhaps, but it is important to remember that the list of an author or synod would only have had a limited measure of authority. In later collections of Byzantine canon law patristic letters such as the kind Athanasius wrote had diminished authority compared to an ecumenical council or even a regional synod. These letters were included in the canon law collection but were recognized to have reduced authority. This must be true regarding Athanasius’s 39th Festal letter on the canonical books since Eastern Orthodox churches continue to discuss the matter today and Athanasius’s letter does not settle the debates. Therefore, no one seems to recognize an authoritative list of books that would settle the debates.

Attempting to weigh all of the evidence, it seems clear that a canon list did not add authority to books already recognized as fit to be on the list. Those discussions happened before the drafting of lists. Thus there is not an authoritative list which confers authority to the books within it. Rather, canon as an exclusive list of authoritative books is what is more plainly rooted in the church’s history.

[irishhomedeemob]

The Hebrew scriptures were already set before the Christian church.
Worship God, because the *testimony of Jesus* is the *spirit of prophecy* 1 peter1:11, Rev 19:10, John 20:29-31
Any other Information (NT canon) passed on, after pentecost would need to be judged on that bases!

Shalom in his indwelling life !

[tracesofheaven-giftbandit]

I love the illustration of the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. One responds to the temperature and the other creates or causes the temperature in the room.

[georgepfenenger]

The following is how we go the bible from www.biblechristiansociety.com
The Bible, as we have it today, did not exist for more than 350 years
after the death of Jesus. Each of the individual books existed, but they were not all put together in the collection of books that we now refer to as “The Bible, ” until late in the 4th century A.D.



For more than 350 years after the death of Christ, there were disputes
- among Christians - as to which books should be considered inspired Scripture. These disputes were about Old Testament and New Testament books. Revelation was a disputed book. As was Hebrews. As

were 2 John and 3 John. As were James, Jude, and 2 Peter.


Plus, there were many other books not in the New Testament as we
have it now, which were considered inspired Scripture by various Christian communities around the world. These included the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians, the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, the

Acts of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Acts of John, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul, and several others.

So, if Christians were disputing over which books should and shouldn’t
be considered the inspired Word of God, for more than 350 years after the death of Christ, then how did we end up with the Bible as we have it today? Who finally decided which books were and which books

were not the inspired Word of God? Did Christians consult the Bible for the answer? Of course not! They went to the Church. But which church? The Catholic Church.



The Council of Rome, in 382 A.D., gave us the first list from the Church of which books should be considered inspired Scripture. That list had exactly the same 73 books of the Bible that are in the Catholic Bible today - including the 7 books of the Old Testament that Protestants refer

to as the Apocrypha. That list of 73 books was affirmed by the Council of Hippo in 393 A.D., the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D., and in a letter from Pope Innocent I in 404 A.D.



All Christians, everywhere, considered the books of the “Apocrypha”
to be inspired Scripture-as part of their Bible - until the 1500’s, when Martin Luther removed them from the Bible. The Gutenberg Bible - the first book ever made with a printing press, had those 7 books in it. The

Bible Martin Luther used as a Catholic priest, had those books in it.
All Bibles everywhere had those books in them - no Bible had only 66 books - until the 1500’s.

[conrads]

The Catholic Church doesn't believe that the Church causes the inspiration of certain books, but rather that it infallibly recognises as inspired the books which were inspired by God.

[kenhayes]

This analogy is not helpful to me. So does the Protestant church actually determine the canon based off its response?

[neilanadams]

Wow, insulting to everyones intelligence

[kathleenwharton]

The only words in the bible I believe..are..the Ten Commandments in the OT..and Jesus Gospel..His Words in Matthew 5 6 7. They are the Words of God. The rest of the bible is the opinions of people About God.

[MatteiVisuals]

So the Protestant church reliably responds to the canonized Scripture, the Catholic Church doesn’t? (Im not Roman Catholic BTW). This ignores history and really begs the question. WHO made the canon? Answer: The one historic and apostolic church’s bishops “reliably responded” to the letters in circulation and by the “spirit of truth” (—Jesus) via the Holy Spirit in the church “the foundation of our faith” (-Paul). The church made the canon. Athanasius of Alexandria proposed the books of the NT and the other bishops, like Basil, agreed because those were the letters being read within THE LITURGY and they agreed with the Apostles Creed and Nicean Creed which were also founded by THE CHURCH. Protestants have created over 30, 000 denominations as they reliably respond to the scriptures. Really??? Nope.

[kathleenwharton]

The church Leaders would have been the ones who decided what went into the bible..and since the church leaders would have been the Pharisees..it makes me wonder why people Trust it so much. It is a miracle it is Good as it is!

[juanmanuelsanchezrodriguez]

Do you think your audience of fools? What a foolish analogy, it is absolutely unhistorical, from the very begining heretics also wrote their texts and many Christians held those as Scriptural, not only heretic writings, but orthodox ones like the Didache, the Epistle of Saint Clement to the Corinthians or the Shepherd of Hermas were held as Scripture, on the other hand, many of the books thst we have now as canonical were disputed, the deuteros of the New Testsment, called "antilegomena" Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and the apocalypse. Who decided among all the disputes? The One Holy Catholic Church. What is concerning here is that not only you lie to others i the name of God, but you lie to yourselves, you look at history and the facts, that Divine Revelation fully belongs to the Catholic Church, and you still reject it. Look upon Saint Peter, he denied the Lord as you keep doing, but he repented and took his place as the First of tje Apostles. You do also have a part of God's heritage in his Holy Church. Be honest to yourselves, the Lord knows your hearts.