The Canonization of the Bible

Search the Bible and you won’t find the Gospel of Thomas, nor will you find the Gospel of Judas. These two ancient works, falsely attributed to two of Christ’s disciples and discovered (or rediscovered) during the past century, have never been accepted as a legitimate part of Scripture.

How do we know which books legitimately belong in the Bible? Why were some books accepted and others rejected? How did we get the Bible we have today, and what was involved in the canonization of the Bible?

First, what is canonization?

Simply put, the canonization of the Bible was the way the books came to be officially recognized as legitimate, authoritative parts of Scripture. These accepted books are part of the biblical canon.

Canon comes from the Greek word kanon, which literally means a “measuring rod.” It reflects the idea, according to The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, that Scripture “represents the yardstick by which the church’s belief and practice is to be measured” (Vol. 1, p. 631).

Furthermore, the books of the Bible are not seen as the result of human thinking alone. Although no one denies that human beings were involved in writing these books, we believe the Bible is divinely inspired.

Scripture itself attests, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The canon of Scripture, then, is “the list of books regarded by the Church as authoritative and divine” (The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 1, p. 709).

The canonization of the Bible was determined by God

Accepting divine inspiration means acknowledging that church councils, conferences, synods or other groups cannot determine what is and what is not canonical. It was God who inspired these books, as Paul explained to Timothy, and it was God who determined the limits of Scripture.

This is why Expositor’s defines canonicity as “an innate authenticity by virtue of divine inspiration,” rather than “a matter of decree by council” (Vol. 1, p. 386).

In its article “Old Testament Canon, Texts, and Versions,” the online Encyclopedia Britannica points out that “sanctity and canonization are not synonymous terms.” At the same time, it says, “The first condition must have existed before the second could have been formally conferred.”

It’s true that councils have met to determine what belongs in the Bible, but for both the Old Testament and the New Testament, “recognition of the Scriptures long preceded conciliar action” (Expositor’s, Vol. 1, p. 635).

Two phases of the canonization of the Bible

Most scholars look at canonization as occurring in two major phases. First, the Old Testament came into existence as the Holy Scriptures of ancient Israel. This body of work was already largely defined before the first century.

Second, the New Testament coalesced as a compilation of books and letters with apostolic authority. Unlike the Old Testament, the New Testament was written entirely within a single century.

The canonization of the Old Testament

What the Old Testament says about itself is a primary factor in authenticating what belongs in the canon and what does not. That’s because several passages refer to the use of portions of the Bible in worship and in living godly lives.

For example, Moses told the priests and elders of Israel that “every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing” (Deuteronomy 31:10-11, emphasis added throughout).

God’s prerogative to determine the limits of His Word is clear: “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

About a thousand years later, Artaxerxes, the Persian king during the time of Ezra, acknowledged the Hebrew Scriptures as more than ordinary writing: “Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it diligently be done for the house of the God of heaven . . . Whoever will not observe the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily on him” (Ezra 7:23, 26).

Meticulous care in preserving Scripture

A second key factor in the process through which the Old Testament came into existence is the meticulous attention to detail of the Jews in preserving the sacred books. Their conscientious care allowed “success in the preservation of the Hebrew Scriptures [that] is unique among ancient literatures” (Expositor’s, Vol. 1, p. 389).

The care taken by the copyists signifies their attitude and demonstrates their acknowledgement of the divine origin of the books they copied.

Historian Scott Manning lists nine rules that guided the Jewish scribes, such as:

• “There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
• “The letters, words and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document” (scottmanning.com).

The New Testament recognizes the vital role played by these scribes in preserving the Old Testament. In a letter to the church at Rome, Paul made this point: “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1-2).

Oracles, from the Greek logion, here means “all the written utterances of God through OT writers” (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words).

Jesus and the Old Testament canon

To Christians, the most important factor in affirming the Old Testament canon is the attitude and words of Jesus. The New Testament, of course, did not yet exist, so it was the Holy Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, that Jesus used and quoted.

When you read through the Gospels, looking especially at the words of Jesus, you will notice that He often quoted Scripture. Jesus quoted the book of Deuteronomy three times as Satan tempted Him (Matthew 4:1-11).

In each case, Jesus replied with the introductory words “It is written,” before quoting Scripture (verses 4, 7, 10). He used these same words many times. He also spoke of biblical prophecies being “fulfilled” (Matthew 13:14; 26:54).

In addition, Christ spoke of “the law and the prophets” (Luke 16:16), which is a term recognizing two of the three generally accepted divisions of the Hebrew Bible. In Luke 24:44 He mentions all three: “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.” The Psalms is another name for the section known as the Writings and also includes books such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Combing through the Gospels, a careful reader will see that Jesus referenced all parts of the Old Testament. Jesus clearly accepted the books of the Hebrew Bible—the books that were kept within each local synagogue—as inspired.

“For the OT,” notes Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, “[Jesus] repeatedly and in detail approved of a sacred corpus which had been written and whose limits can with extreme confidence be described as the thirty-nine books of the [English Old Testament]” (Vol. 1, p. 731).

Disagreement over the Old Testament canon

Only later did controversy arise over what constitutes the Old Testament canon. The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches both include additional books, generally referred to as the Apocrypha. (See our article “Apocrypha: Is It Part of the Bible?” for more on this topic.)

The Greek and Roman churches included these books (or additions to existing books) because they are part of the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Jews living in Egypt translated the Hebrew Scriptures into this Greek version in the third and second centuries before Christ.

The Hebrew text of the Bible, though, didn’t include the apocryphal books. That alone is a strong argument against the Apocrypha. However, because most New Testament quotes follow the wording of the Septuagint, some scholars argue that the Apocrypha should be treated as part of the canon.

According to Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, “The error in the whole argument is that it presumes that the original LXX [Septuagint] included all the books that the later copies included” (Vol. 1, p. 727). However, the oldest surviving fragments of the Septuagint do not include anything from the Apocrypha.

Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia continues, “Jews like Philo of Alexandria quote from the books of the OT as authoritative (all parts of it), but never from the [Apocrypha].” The oldest evidence makes a strong case against including the Apocrypha.

The canonization of the New Testament

As mentioned earlier, the New Testament was written within a single century. There are clues within the New Testament itself pointing to a growing recognition of these new books as authoritative and divinely inspired.

Paul’s letters allude to teachings of Jesus, indicating that the Church had already begun the task of collecting and preserving the words of Christ. In his letter to the church at Corinth, for instance, the apostle buttressed his teaching on marriage by mentioning what Jesus taught.

“Now to the married I command,” Paul wrote, “yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:10). The fact that Paul could say the command wasn’t his but Christ’s indicates that there were early records of the teachings of Jesus.

The command Paul gave is clearly from Jesus. It is considerably different from what the rabbis of the day taught, but lines up perfectly with the Gospel accounts (Matthew 5:31-32; 19:3-9).

The effort to record the life and teachings of Jesus began early. By the time Luke wrote his Gospel, he could say, “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative” (Luke 1:1).

There was widespread recognition of the need to preserve what the first disciples had witnessed. “It is unthinkable that any long period of time elapsed before the words of Jesus were regarded in the same light as the OT” (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 733).

The role of the apostles in the canon

From the very beginning of their ministry, the apostles were in a unique position. They had personally lived and traveled with Jesus. They had seen Him fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. They had been taught like no others.

Jesus Himself commanded these men, who had received so much, to teach others regarding His words and deeds: “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

This apostolic authority became a vital element for identifying what would become the New Testament: “As far as can be determined, the chief criterion for acceptance of particular writings as sacred, authoritative, and worthy of being read in services of worship was apostolic authorship” (Bruce Metzger, “The Formation of the New Testament Canon,” TheologyMatters.com).

The Gospel accounts were products of the apostles’ work, either directly or indirectly. (Most scholars believe that Mark, for example, wrote his Gospel in conjunction with Peter.)

Paul, though not one of the original apostles, was taught by the resurrected Christ directly (Galatians 1:11-12, 16-17). And so his letters constitute a significant part of the New Testament, recognized by the apostle Peter in the same category as “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15-16).

The practice of the early Church

During the first century, books were rolled up into scrolls. They were handwritten and, as such, prohibitively expensive for most people. Synagogues collected the books of the Bible, providing their respective communities with the opportunity to hear Scripture read aloud.

Before human councils became involved, the legitimate books of the Bible were already clear to God’s Church. For that, we can thank God. Early Christians followed this same practice, as Paul’s letters make clear. Paul charged his protégé Timothy to “give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:13). Reading of Scripture was an important part of the practice of the early Church.

Initially, those Scriptures were identical to the canon of the Old Testament, but as the apostles and others under their leadership wrote the Gospels, epistles and other books, the New Testament canon began to take shape.

What’s interesting is that even during his lifetime, Paul’s own writings carried enough authority that they were read aloud when the Church assembled.

Paul instructed the Colossians, “When this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16).

Near the end of his life, Paul’s request for Timothy to bring him “the books, especially the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13) could well have included a reference to his collection of inspired New Testament writings.

By the beginning of the second century, it was already clear that the works written and accepted by the first-century apostles would carry more weight than other writings.

The canonization of the Bible

It’s clear that the canonization of the Bible, whether the Old Testament books or the New Testament books, was not determined by assembled councils. However, meetings did take place to review the books that had already taken hold in synagogues and congregations.

For the Old Testament, the most significant of those meetings was at Jamnia (or Jabneh) in Palestine. Even so, the attendees did little more than review the books already largely accepted.

Expositor’s explains: “That the Hebrew canon was ‘officially’ delineated only at the Synod of Jamnia in A.D. 90 does not affect the fact that in the time of Jesus and his apostles—and well before that—the sacred books were recognized” (Vol. 1, p. 632).

The story is a little different for the New Testament. By the end of the first century, congregations were striving to remain true to apostolic teaching amid persecution and the continual threat of syncretism.

“A powerful impetus toward the formation of the NT canon came from the Church’s resistance to heretical books” (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 733).

This is why some books were not included in the New Testament canon.

“Instead of suggesting that certain books were arbitrarily or accidentally excluded from the New Testament, it is more accurate to say that certain books excluded themselves from the canon” (Bruce M. Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content, p. 318).

From the apostles to the councils

The New Testament gives evidence of more communication and cooperation between the apostles and congregations of the early Church than many realize. For example, consider the Jerusalem conference (Acts 15), as well as the many other mentions of meetings, visits and coordination (Acts 9:27-28; 11:19-22; Galatians 1:18; 2:1-10; etc.).

Letters were shared between congregations (Colossians 4:16), and Peter was not only aware of Paul’s writings, but considered them Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16).

So it seems reasonable that the canon of the New Testament was outlined by the apostles and capped by the apostle John with the book of Revelation at the close of the first century. He concluded the last book of the Bible with a warning not to add to or take away from the words of the book (Revelation 22:18-19).

However, there is little record of those early years outside of the Bible. Historians find partial lists of New Testament books in the writings of Church leaders like the second-century Polycarp. And the 27 books of the New Testament we know today are found listed by Athanasius in the mid-fourth century.

But the lack of earlier historical sources doesn’t mean this list was something new. Instead, according to Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, this list “rather presents a clarification of an established usage” (Vol. 1, p. 739).

Church councils eventually began considering what should be canonical, but not until the mid-fourth century, after “nearly three centuries of church usage had virtually fixed the canon” (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 740).

What the canonization of the Bible means for us

In some ways, the process of canonization may not seem straightforward. Although God inspired the books of the Bible, He used humans to write, compile and preserve it.

Jesus Himself gave His approval to the books of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings—the Holy Scriptures (our Old Testament). Though the Bible doesn’t give details, God also led the Church to recognize the writings to be considered Scripture—the 27 books of the New Testament.

Before human councils became involved, the legitimate books of the Bible were already clear to God’s Church. For that, we can thank God.

He has inspired and preserved for us exactly what we need to “be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). Study further in the “Bible” section of the Life, Hope & Truth website.