How We Got the Scriptures...

Let me preface this post by stating that a lot of the content you will read in this post will be from a lesson in a course I took from Global University, some of this will be verbatim from my book, some from my notes, and some will be my comments. I'm terrible at citing and other such APA MLA BLAH BLAH BLAH rules, so consider this my blanket, I'm not plagiarizing statement, I learned this in my Intro to Theology course and am now sharing.

Now with that out of the way, let me say this, we had a discussion in my Young Adults Connect Group this morning about "where did we get the Bible from?" Very good question, I'll do my best to answer that here.

The word Scripture means "holy writings." The Scriptures are holy because God gave them. The term canon means "a rule, a standard, a measuring rod." The canon of scripture refers to books that have met a standard and that the church has accepted as the inspired Word of God. At the time of Jesus, the Jews used the Scripture  about a fixed, well-known group of books - the 39 books of the Old Testament. The 27 books in the New Testament formed over a period of three centuries. During those years, church leaders discussed the list often, and the majority of the church agreed on God's inspiration of certain books. Ultimately, the books that were truly from God testified for themselves. Their placement in the canon was not just the decision of the authors or the church council. Although church councils did meet and discuss the different books, their main purpose was to confirm which books the church agreed on. I believe that the Holy Spirit led the people of God in this process.

In AD 367, the theologian Athanasius considered all the books that were being passed around the church as apostolic writings (writings by apostles). His examination reveled twenty seven books, the same ones in our New Testament today, although he placed them in a different order. Thirty years later, in AD 397, a church council met in Carthage to discuss which books were truly Scripture. Before deciding to include a book in the New Testament canon, the Council measured it by four tests-

The 4-Way Scripture Test in the New Testament

1. An Apostle or someone close to an apostle had to be the author. For example, the Gospel of John was accepted because the apostle John wrote it. However, although apostles did not write them, the gospels of Luke and Mark were accepted because Luke had traveled with Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter.

2. The book had to match what the church already knew to be Scripture. If there was any conflict, the book was not accepted.

3. The book had to be widely accepted by the church. The church as a whole had to recognize that God had inspired the book. If only a small portion of the church believed that a book was inspired, it was not placed in the canon.

4. The book had to have a quality that revealed divine inspiration. In other words, it needed to change people's lives.

After considering all the books, the Council of Carthage confirmed that the only books that measured up to the standard were the 27 books we call the New Testament.

The topic of the Apocryphal books was brought today as well, "why don't we use them and the Catholics do?" Also another very good question, so here is what I can share to shed some light on that. Over the years some have claimed that other books should be placed in the canon. The Catholic Bible and some Eastern Orthodox Bibles contain additional books referred to as the Apocrypha. However the early church did not consider these books to be inspired by God, the books were not included in the Hebrew Scriptures. Some of these books, such as First Maccabees, contain history, but are not clearly inspired by God, while others clearly contain errors and doctrines which are contrary to the rest of the Bible. Other people, like Joseph Smith who wrote the Book of Mormon, have claimed to write for God. Yet their books contain obvious conflicts with Scripture, and they were not written by either an apostle or someone close to an apostle. All of these books, along with the Apocrypha, are not in the canon because they did not pass the necessary tests.

Old Testament - 

Let's talk about the Old Testament for a little bit.

What is the Old Testament?

As said previously, the Old Testament contains the first 39 books of the Bible. The Old Testament was a covenant/agreement between God and Israel, the children of Abraham. God promised to keep His part of the covenant if the Israelites kept their part.

Who wrote the Old Testament and when? 

The OT is a part of the Bible, a term derived from Greek and Latin words for "book." the bible is the book above all other books in that it contains 66 books written by about 40 authors over a period of roughly 1600 years and inspired by the same spirit. God guided the writers to write what he wanted them to write. He carried them along by His Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

How did the books of the OT get into our bible?

We refer to the books from Genesis to Malachi as the canon of the old Testament. The OT canon is the list of books that meet the standards for being in God's Word. the 39 books in our OT are the same books that Jesus and the Jews of His day accepted as God's Word. As I said before The Catholic Bible and some Eastern Orthodox Bibles also contain books that are grouped in a class called the Apocrypha. The word Apocrypha means "hidden books" but later came to mean "not in the canon or list." During the time of Martin Luther, the Catholics accepted 7 apocryphal books as well as minor additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. the Catholics did not officially accept the books of the Apocrypha until 1546 at the Council of Trent. Although some of these books were included in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures), they were not part of the Hebrew Scriptures during Christ's time. Neither Jesus nor the apostles quoted any of the apocryphal books as Scripture. While the books in the Apocrypha contain some truth, they also contain error. therefore, they do not meet the standards set for recognizing Scripture.

Some other time I'll do a post about authority and inspiration of Scripture, which is a GREAT topic. Although this is not the most thorough and exhaustive explanation of where the Scriptures came from and why we accept them as they are, I hope it does help to shed some light and understanding on the subject. Again the majority of this content came from my Intro to Theology course and a tidbit from my OT Survey course. I'm not nearly as smart as the blog sounds, I promise.

Be Blessed,
Ryan