How Do We Know Which Books Should Be Included in the Bible?

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

The question — and what 'canon' means

• The question posed: most of our audience members are going to know the books of the Bible by their counts — 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament. But we're also aware that these books we include in our modern Bible are not the only books that were written by prophets and preachers during the periods of time that the Bible was being written. We have other books, like Enoch, or the Gospel of Thomas, or the Epistle of Barnabas — and there's many others that were composed at roughly the same time that our books of the Bible were. So the question is: who decided which books were going to be included in what we call the modern Bible, and which to leave out — and why did they make those choices? His answer: that's a very good question, that goes to the fundamentals of our faith — because we believe the Bible is our authority for doctrine, for salvation, for Christian life and Christian ministry. (He does discuss this question in great detail in his book, God's Infallible Word.) This is the question of what's called the Canon — C-A-N-O-N (as he spells it) — or, the list of books that are accepted as scripture. Theologically, we say: the books accepted as scripture are the books that are inspired by God. So we don't decide the Canon — God decided the Canon, by deciding which books to inspire. But we're still left with a practical question: how do we know? So, to summarize briefly.

The Old Testament: the books Israel received

• The Old Testament — the basis for our accepting them is as follows. First of all: we accept the books that ancient Israel accepted, because they were the people of God at that time, to whom these books were given. So we accept the same books that Judah judism (as the name is heard) from ancient times till today accepts as biblical. A second point is: almost all the books — now, the Hebrew Bible has the same 39 books, but some of them are combined, so either you have 22 or 24 Hebrew books, which are equivalent to our 39 Old Testament books. So, using the Hebrew classification: Jesus, and the other speakers and writers in the New Testament, quoted from almost all of them as authoritative scripture — or alluded to stories from them — but did not quote from any of the other books. (And that would be ancient — usually in the Old Testament you're talking about the possibility of the Apocrypha, which are books written in intertestamental times; we recorded a great episode, so we discussed that.) And so, as a practical matter: it also appears that the Old Testament prophets kept written records, and added to them — so it appears that many of these ancient books were recognized in scripture almost immediately, because they were kept by a company of recognized prophets, who prophesied, who wrote some things, and who handed them down to us. So the Old Testament is not too controversial — especially as he's stated, we've separately discussed those books in the intertestamental period known as the Apocrypha. So that's pretty settled.

The New Testament: the number one criterion is apostolic authority

• Now the New Testament. Essentially, the criteria — the number one criterion is apostolic authority. So: they were written — you know, Jesus commissioned 12 Apostles, and then he commissioned the Apostle Paul as a special Apostle to the Gentiles, so we regard those 13 men as divinely chosen to establish the church. Well, all the books of the New Testament were written with apostolic authority. What I mean by that is: they were either written by one of those 13 men, or an associate of one of those 13 men, with the approval of those men — in other words, if they were not written directly by an apostle, they were written by someone who worked closely with the apostles, who had the opportunity to review their work, correct their work, and — if it was written and distributed while some Apostles were still alive — could say: no, that's wrong. So the 27 books of the New Testament we accept because of apostolic authority.
• And as a practical matter: by, say, the middle of the 2nd century, almost all of them are mentioned in various writings — with the exception just of a few small books, like second and third John. They're all recognized as scripture, and quoted as scripture, by Believers in the late 1st century, the early 2nd century. So as a practical matter, the people of God at that time — or at least the Christians — recognized... we know there's some true and false doctrine, but the mass of people, from the mid-2nd century — much like the Jews of the Old Testament, the Christians of the New Testament era, or slightly thereafter — would have accepted these very books.

The list walked — the disputed few — and the doctrine test

• Actually, if you go through the list, most of them are non-controversial. So: Matthew, one of the 12; Mark, associate of both Paul and Peter; Luke, associate of Paul; John, one of the 12 (heard as 'John 1: 12'). So you go down the list: the 13 Pauline Epistles, of course; Acts, written by Luke, associate of Paul — and Luke and Acts, those two books represent one-fourth of the New Testament themselves. So you have the 13 Pauline Epistles (heard once as 'Pauling'), the Epistles of Peter, the Epistles of John. So, you know: Jude, brother of the Lord; James, brother of the Lord, and recognized as leader of the early church; Revelation, by John. Hebrews: the author is not named, but it seems — by the references within it, as well as the theology — to have been an associate of Paul and Timothy. And so a few of those have been controversial over the centuries, for various reasons — I think about seven of them were disputed. But the vast majority — the gospels, Acts, the Pauline Epistles, first Peter, first John — were never disputed. So even if you took out the seven that were disputed by some, you have all the doctrines of the New Testament pretty much there. And the remaining books that were disputed by some — the dispute is resolved in their favor, by the criteria he's mentioned: apostolic authority, acceptance by the earliest Christians.
• And of course, we also look: if a book doesn't match the doctrine of the accepted books, then it can't be valid. And so some of the other books you mentioned — they have doctrines in them that don't fit the rest of the New Testament; they're obviously wrong. Like, the Gospel of Thomas is obviously a gnostic forgery. The Epistle of Barnabas is not written by the Barnabas of the Bible — written later — and it has some questionable things. So, you know, you can easily go through the list. Enoch: there is a book that is supposed to be quoted from Enoch, or about Enoch — and Jude makes a reference to that. But it's very possible that both the Book of Enoch and Jude are quoting, or referring to, the same authentic tradition from ancient times. And so what you have to understand is: there are some rare mentions in the New Testament of a few Jewish traditions — that, first of all, doesn't mean the whole book that would now have that tradition is considered authoritative. Also, it could mean — as I just alluded to — that this later book, and the biblical book, are going back to the same oral tradition. As a matter of history: just like in a sermon I might quote Lincoln — that doesn't mean I think that Lincoln's inspired by God, but I recognize that as a historical quote, or valid source.

Confidence: the God who inspired also preserved

• So, without going into great detail: I think we can say the New Testament — apostolic authority, acceptance by the earliest Christians, with really no dispute at all for the vast majority, and matching the rest of the New Testament that's already been clearly established. So I think we can have great confidence that the same God who inspired the writers to write also, through the historical process, kept his hand of preservation upon the word, and revealed what is the word. So that — otherwise, you could say God's intentions were thwarted, if he inspired the books and yet they're lost or obscured and nobody can figure them out: well, wouldn't God's purpose be destroyed? So if we have enough confidence that God inspired the books, I think we can have confidence that God kept his hand upon the subsequent reception process, so that we can have confidence that the books we have today are indeed the word of God.