Selection of the Books in the Bible
Today we will briefly examine some interesting questions—when and by whom were decisions made about which books would be in the Bible?
Sometimes it is hard for us to imagine a time when the Bible didn’t exist in a volume as we now know it, the collection of 66 books organized for efficient reading and study. In fact, as we become more and more used to books in electronic form, including on computers, internet, ebooks, our cell phones, and more, it is even easier to neglect the fact that for much of history since the life of Christ, there were no books as we now know them.
All copies of the Holy Scriptures were handwritten until the invention of the printing press in the 1450s by Johann Gutenberg. The materials for handwritten copies varied a lot, too. They included stone, papyri and parchment. The process of producing copies of the text was very difficult work.
When we talk about the collection of 66 books in the Bible, the theology concept or term that we use is “canon.” It is a term from the Greek language which means “measuring rod” or “ruler.” In other words, it is the standard for judging something. So, our canon, (our list of books in the Bible), is our standard or “rule” for the church.
The question of how Christians arrived at this exact set of books is complex, as you can imagine, since over history these books were certainly not the only writings about the Christian faith.
Let’s start our discussion with the first Christians. These earliest Christians were all Jews, so they were never without Scripture. We know that as we read the New Testament, Jesus referred to the Jewish scriptures and taught from them. He pointed out how those scriptures talked about him.
Lk 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
The 39 books of our Protestant Old Testament are the exact books recognized by the Jews of Israel.
Beyond Palestine, Jews sometimes considered additional writings as Scripture. The Greek translation of the Old Testament made known a set of books known as the Apocrypha. These are included in today’s Roman Catholic Old Testament.
Why are they not included in the Protestant Old Testament? It is a complicated question. Early on, the differences of opinion were pretty much geographical. Believers in the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire agreed with the Jews in the area. In the west, they tended to accept the Apocrypha.
What became the deciding factor for the Protestant Old Testament? Evidence seems to indicate that neither Jesus nor his apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha as Scripture. With that important source of validation missing, during the 16th century reformation most Protestants did not accept the Apocrypha as a part of the canon.
This difference still exists today.
Next time we will examine the canon of the New Testament.
Blessings,
Larry
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