Reddit reviews The Canon of Scripture

The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce and The Biblical Canon by Lee McDonald are two very good books on the subject that will answer your questions and more.

I've not only answered you, but given you sources after you demanded them. I'll even add another:

F.F. Bruce.

But you do you, Tanhan.

You might enjoy F.F. Bruce's The Canon of Scripture.

I think the important thing to notice is that the early church placed the locus of authority in the living ecclesiastical authorities (bishops and councils) which were tethered to the Tradition which preceded them. So, different dioceses and bishops recognized different canons over a couple or three centuries, until they all settled together on the Athanasian canon in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. But again, I think it's important to recognize that the early Christians recognized authority within their leadership to a much stronger degree than modern Christians do.

Personally, I take a similar position - if the ancient faith embraced it, so do I. Who am I to stand in judgment against such an august counsel?

I'm not quite sure what you are looking for. A few possible options for you:

The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce Metzger.

The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce.

The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant? by Walter Kaiser

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham

66 is the number for the Protestant canon, the R. Catholic and E. Orthodox have larger canons.

For a good book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X

2 things:

1. It helps to have a mental framework wherein a god, or "great mental entity" is even possible. There is evidence, but without accepting first that God may exist, it will be explained away as something else. You don't have to believe at first, but it's impossible to understand Christianity if you start off rejecting even the smallest possibility that God exists and wait for someone/something to prove you wrong. Inquire into The Quinque Viae with an open (but discerning) mind.
   
2. Start by looking into how the Bible was made. A good resource is The Canon of Scripture. Most people emphacize the teachings of the Bible (which is good, but as you pointed out, then it's one teaching against another and how do you choose?) over the history. The Bible is not one writing; it is accounts collected over history by different writers about how God showed up in history. And the history is accurate. These are by and large the only religious documents ever made that don't take place in an unverifiable place or time. The Bible says "this happened here in X time period. Go see for yourself." The book explains pretty well why some writing is called "The Bible" and some other documents such as The Gospel of Thomas missed one or more stringent qualifications.
   
   Inquiring into both of these things won't necessarily make you Christian or cause you to have an experience. But you will learn something about yourself, and understand the mindset of intelligent people who approach these claims with an open mind and find something uniquely true.

Im on mobile, so this is just a placeholder until I get home to my references. But this question comes up quite a bit.

OK, Apologies for the delay, birthday dinners, flat tire on the way home....life is just complicated sometimes.

So, one of the best conservative sources I am aware of on How we got the canon of Scripture is from noted scholar F.F. Bruce, "The Canon of Scripture". "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell also has a lengthy chapter on the subject as well.

But in a nutshell, the Old Testament canon was pretty much set in stone about 400 years prior to Jesus' birth, so almost no one debates which texts are canon there. There might be some arguments over the order (chronological, vs. putting the Law, Prophets, and Wisdom literature together, or combining 1 & 2 Kings (et. al.) together as one book, but even the most liberal authors agree on what constitutes the "Old Testament. See Lasor, Hubbard and Bush, Old Testament Survey.

Protestants and Catholics disagree on whether the inter-testamental books (called the Pseudepigrapha, or the Apocrypha), are canon. Catholics include them in their Bible, Protestants do not.

As for the New Testament, here's the short story: After about 90 AD (after the Apostle John wrote Revelation), there sprung up a lot of "Christian texts" from various authors, some possibly inspired, others just wanting to get on the band-wagon, so to speak.

The Christian church was not officially "organized" until Emperor Constantine in 313 AD with the Edict of Milan. He convened the First Council of Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey) in 325 AD, which compiled a list of texts, as Constantine had ordered 50 copies (handwritten, of course, being way before the Gutenberg Bible) for distribution.

In fact, the list of books we call the "New Testament" was almost complete by Irenaeus in 202 AD. (So anyone who tries to "late-date" the NT is out of luck there. From 90 AD (writing of Revelation) to 202 AD is a knife-edge in time when talking about ancient documents...) While the Council of Nicaea contributed some to it's organization, the canon was complied by 367 AD, by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who lists the exact order and books that we call the NT today.

Some things to think about, with regards to which books were included and which were excluded: All the books of the NT can be attributed with certainty to people who lived concurrently with Jesus, ("We were eye-witnesses to His Majesty", 1 John 1) and who listened to, and were discipled directly by Jesus. There were plenty of writings by disciples of disciples, but only first-hand accounts were accepted into canon. For example, Matthew (the tax collector) was an apostle. Mark (the earliest gospel) is believed to be a dictation by Peter (see Acts 12). The Apostle John, of course, and Paul, who met with Jesus on the road to Damascus. (Add to this, Peter's approval of Paul in 2 Peter 3). The other authors of NT books were all contemporaries of Jesus; Luke, who traveled with Paul, etc.

That's the short story. There are many, many sub-characters and sub-plots, of course. What it boils down to, is that God has the power to preserve His Word to all generations, regardless of men's abilities, or inabilities, to screw things up. So we can have confidence that the same Gospel Jesus taught His disciples, is the same gospel we read today.

When I was studying this, the best sources I found were:

The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce Metzger

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-New-Testament-Development-Significance/dp/0198269544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497034222&sr=8-1&keywords=the+canon+of+the+new+testament

and

The Canon of Scripture, by F.F. Bruce

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497034279&sr=8-1&keywords=the+canon+of+scripture

They are both Protestants but I didn't notice any particular theological bias. Both cover both the OT and NT but since we know a lot more about the formation of the NT, it gets a lot more coverage.

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X

FF Bruce's Canon of Scripture seems to be the most widely accepted.

There's lots of articles all over, with the whole spectrum covered. For purely scholarly stuff from an agnostic point of view, look at anything by Bart D. Ehrman. Save his in case you are worried you are getting pulled to the light side. ;)

For a pretty good study read the book The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce. Here's a short summary of what he covers http://www.bible-researcher.com/bruce1.html

For a good article on the subject look up the ones found here: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Bibliology/Formation-of-the-Canon/

If you are a reader, I'd suggest you check out [The Canon of Scripture] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/083081258X?pc_redir=1409923923&robot_redir=1) by FF Bruce.

Sorry for the late reply, you caught me between class and teaching last night.

> I did not know that about Luther. Did he say why he removed those books?

His reasoning for removing those 7 books were that they weren't recognized by the Jews as canon (who themselves only "formalized' their Scripture sometime between the 3rd and 6th centuries. There's no scholarly consensus on when it was exactly finalized or by whom). Part of his reasoning was that they weren't (debatably in some cases) written in Hebrew but instead in Greek, thus they weren't inspired texts like the rest of the Hebrew OT. The Council of Trent, a Catholic Ecumenical Council, defined the Catholic Bible as 73 books including the 7 removed by Luther and the Reformers as deuterocanon (or "secondary canon" though still full parts of Scripture).

> Also, was there ever some sort of original historical team that established a set of books that was later refined? Do we have a timeline where that occurred, and how the Canon shaped over time and research?

Wiki does a good job summarizing the major movements in the development. And as I said above, Trent was when the finalized Catholic bible was authoritatively declared, though it was basically a formal acknowledgement of what was already standard practice in the Church for about a thousand years.

>Is this what the "Magisterium's Team" is?

The Magisterium is the teaching body of the Catholic Church and they settle matters of doctrine, including what is contained in Holy Scripture. The Magisterium is what made up the various councils throughout the ages including Trent.

>Finally, is there any specific source you recommend where I can go to find out more about the history of the Canon of the Bible?

Like I said, wiki does quite a good job giving a summary level. If you want a more academic and in depth reading I recommend Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament as was already suggested (though it tends to be on the apologetic side, it is still quite reliable) or F F Bruce's The Canon of Scripture. Niel R Lightfoot's How We Got The Bible is also quite good.

The Bible says on John 21:25

"25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen."

So yes, there are many stories that were not written down on manuscripts and HAS to had been passed down orally. Think about this, there are pastors or priest that have memorize their entire Bible today. Hell, there are people from other religions that have memorize their entire Holy book. Why do you think it's so farfetched for earliest Christians to had memorize 5-6 verses? Especially if they knew that they needed to preserve the integrity of this story of literally the Messiah, the son of God himself in order to pass it down. Even as an atheist yourself, you have to admit that this is an immense extra pressure on them to preserve it as it is.

If we are gonna apply this method of scrutiny, you understand that every single religion has used an oral tradition. Christianity is actually one of the religions that has more documented history and strongest backing on his side. And I'm not trying to be arrogant or anything but it really is true. The earliest manuscript can even be traced to just 5 AD after the cross. Even in traditional history this is an anomaly. Let's look at Alexander the Great biography for example wrtten by Plutarch. It came 400 years after Alexander's death, and you would say that it is reliable. there are over four times as many sources for Jesus’ life and deeds than for Tiberius Caesar’s, which was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus.

>What does it take for a story to be 'authentic'? Is it just that Christians have to like the story? or is it that the story has to be in the original manuscripts? Would it be fair to say 'some Christians making copies of the bible thought it was appropriate to add this passage, therefore the passage is authentic'?

No. You see, there were many forgeries that came up throughout history claiming to be genuine gospels, how to differentiate them? It's simple. You look at the rest of the Bible and see if it is consistent with the teachings/life of Jesus, the OT and NT. It's no different than using this method with any other historical manuscript.

Listen man I have to sleep but I'll tell you this, If you really want to hear more about how the New Testament was formed and the historical development of the Bible, there are sources on the internet and books available. Here are some that I recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X/ref=pd_cp_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=083081258X&pd_rd_r=PDQ7KR94J0E0R5F5XHXR&pd_rd_w=htZar&pd_rd_wg=jYezq&psc=1&refRID=PDQ7KR94J0E0R5F5XHXR

https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Bible-Philip-W-Comfort/dp/0842383670

Although I'm sure many people in here would give better recommendations, these are pretty good. God bless.

I am not sure I completely understand the question, but if you are looking to do an in-depth study of the New Testament, I would recommend getting some Bible commentaries.

Concordia Publishing House has a nice series called Concordia Commentary. Here is a link to the volume on Galatians:

https://www.amazon.com/Galatians-Concordia-Commentary-Theological-Exposition/dp/0758615523

Typically you would want something that discusses the original Greek (the actual words, the cases that some words appear in, the grammar (or lack thereof :))) . Most Bible commentaries will also contain commentary on the text, but I guess you could skip that.

With this, I think a good concordance is helpful.

You probably would also want a good dictionary that can discuss the uses of important Greek words.

EDIT: I wanted to add: If it isn't clear, you would want to try and understand the original Greek (including the different manuscripts). As such a serious study might start with a study of Biblical Greek. I can recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Basics-Biblical-Grammar-William-Mounce/dp/0310287685

(From what I understand this textbook is widely used.)

One more thing: I would also recommend looking at the history of the Biblical canon. Something like:

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X

might be helpful.

Hey there brother, I would encourage you to do a little more research into how canon was established.

A few points:

• In 325 AD there was no talk of establishing canon at the Council of Nicea.
  
• For a long period of time before any councils met, most Scripture was widely agreed upon. Councils didn't invent Scripture out of thin air, but simply officially stated what almost everyone already agreed upon.
  
  Further light reading:
  
  
• http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/05/canon-of-new-testament-as-self.html
  
• http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html
  
  More reading:
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Revisited-Establishing-Authority-Testament/dp/1433505002/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1342625239&sr=8-8
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342625239&sr=8-2

I encourage you to read some stuff by F.F. Bruce if you really are that interested in finding answers.

NT documents book
https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Documents-They-Reliable/dp/0802822193

Overall docs
https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AARCB3GGBEWQDVEWA7G6

You can purchase both on Kindle for about $25.

PM if you are super interested in this an have a kindle. I'll gift you the copy of the NT one.

The best resource that I own and have used is F.F. Bruce's 'The Canon of Scripture'. Pretty accessible, but won't win awards for entertainment.