,Have you ever gone shopping for a new Bible only to find there is an endless list of translations to chose from? Without even thinking about it, I could probably rattle off twenty or so different translations of the Bible as there are a seemingly endless selection to choose from. To complicate matters even more, why do some Bibles’ have more books than others? For example, if you go down to the local Christian bookstore in my neck of the woods, you will find that while there may be many different translations of the Bible, they uniformly contain 66 different books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament—this is known as the Protestant canon. I should add that “canon” is the rule or measure by which was used to determine which collection of writings were considered holy, sacred and inspired to be read in the Church. Now, if you shop around online or visit a Catholic bookstore, you will find that while these translations of the Bible contain the same amount of New Testament books, they actually contain six additional books in the Old Testament-- known as deuterocanonical books or “the second canon”. And if you look at the Orthodox Bible, you will discover that in most cases (with the exception of the Coptic Churches) these Bible’s have three additional books over and above the Catholic canon in the Old Testament—but the New Testament books are the same as both the Catholic and Protestant Bible’s.
So before we address the different sizes of the Bible’s, perhaps we should begin by asking how did we get the canon? This is a very complex question that we will address briefly, but contrary to what some believe today, the early Church survived just fine for centuries without what we have come to know as “the Bible”. In the earliest days of the Church, say while Saint Paul and some of the other New Testament writers were alive, almost no church possessed a copy of the gospels or even one of Saint Paul’s letters for that matter. This was by and large an oral culture which relied heavily upon the passing on of sacred traditions by word of mouth rather than the written Word. In fact, Saint Paul says to the Church in Thessalonica after dispatching a letter to hold fast to the traditions that were passed on to them (2 Thess. 2:15). Now one can only imagine, when a Church received one of Saint Paul’s letters, these were read and reread, then copied and circulated among other churches in close proximity of one another. For example, Saint Paul says in his letter to the Church in Colossae (Col. 4:16) that after the letter is read, they are instructed to pass it on to the Laodiceans and in turn they will give Colossae their letter (which is lost) or may be Ephesians. So not long after Saint Paul’s letters began to circulate throughout Asia Minor (Turkey) and Macedonia (Greece), some of the evangelists were tapped to write the gospels and copies of the gospels then began to circulate and be copied down. Of course, the early Christians knew the central tenants of the faith or the heart of the good news, but these written gospels encompassed and expanded a fuller view on the life and teachings of Jesus. Originally, the gospels unlike Saint Paul’s letters, were anonymous, but when more than one gospel came into the hands of a Church it was thus necessary to attach names to them (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) to distinguish authorship. One could say with certainty that by the close of the first century the entirety of the New Testament was completed—but far from becoming an authoritative compilation as we know it today. The first books to really become part of the corpus or the embodiment of what would be commonly read within the early Christian Churches were the gospels and Saint Paul’s letters, that is why every Sunday the Orthodox Church will read from Saint Paul and a gospel. We know these were used early and often because of various quotations from Church Fathers that have mainly been preserved by the great Church historian, Eusebius. Interestingly enough many of these quotations were from heretics and Church Fathers refuting heretics. In his work, ‘The Canon of The New Testament’ Bruce Metzger gives a thorough list of recorded events in the second century that helped shape the New Testament. Of course Christianity started in the East, so that is epicenter of where much of the action began before spreading West. In the East, there were many early heresies that sprang into existence such as: the early gnostic teachings of Basilides, Carpocrates, Marcionism, Valentinians and Montanism to name a few. With all these heresies that cropped up in the second century and threatened the young Church, the Church Fathers would regularly quote from Saint Paul and the gospels as they were taught from the apostolic chain to refute them. However, at times the opponents of the Fathers would equally quote certain passages of Sacred Scripture to support their position as well, which in turn lead to a Synod or council of Church leaders to decide whether or not to accept or condemn any new ideas or interpretations of Scripture that went against apostolicity. One such individual was Marcion and we know a great deal about him not from his own writings but from his opponent, Tertullian. With Marcion and his work Antitheses the first canonical list emerges. The documented collection dates to around the middle of the second-century and contains Saint Luke’s gospel along with Acts of the Apostles and Saint Paul’s letters. Marcion had sharp disagreements with the Old Testament God and Jesus, so he essentially cut and pasted his own canon of Scripture where he completely eradicated the Old Testament, all the gospels except Saint Luke. But even in Saint Luke’s gospel he cut out the birth narrative and began in chapter 3 because of the OT citations. While Marcion enjoyed Saint Paul’s letters, he only kept them to the extent where he agreed with them. But if Marcion created a canon that the Fathers rejected, then there must have been some type of canon or collection that preceded it, because the Fathers say he rejected “certain writings”—we just don’t possess that canonical list. With most early heresies extinguished by the early Church Fathers, by the close of the second century we begin to see an outline of what is best described as the nucleus of the New Testament as the gospels, Saint Paul, John and others are quoted from. Now to be sure the canon of Sacred Scripture was far from being settled. To fast-forward a few hundred years to the fourth century, this is where we really begin to see a final shape of the canon taking place, however, some works are still in dispute and others are proposed but rejected. As previously discussed, we looked at some ways in which the early Church dealt with heretical teachings, but what about the other later proposed gospels like Thomas, Mary or Peter? Also, what about some of the early great works the Church produced like: Didache, Shepherd of Hermas or Clements letters to the Church in Corinth, why were these works deemed as non-canonical? Well, the Bible doesn’t tell us which works should be included and which should be excluded so a different method must have been employed to determine canonicity. Now these questions will actually be dealt with quite quickly as the early Church seemed to have developed a criterion or a grid by which writings were accepted or rejected. The most basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to the rule of faith. In other words, the content had to agree with the substance of the Old Testament writings and prophets. The Muratorian Fragmentist said regarding later works that did not correspond to the teachings of oral tradition and the OT that it would be wrong to mix gall with honey. Secondly, apostolicity or those who were witnesses or near eyewitnesses within the lifetime of the Apostles. Again when the Muratorian Fragment rules against The Shepherd of Hermas as qualifying for canonization in the Bible, he does so on the basis that it was too recent, and that it cannot find its place among the Apostles. Lastly, there needed to be a universal agreement that a given document was read in the Catholic Church on a regular basis. Many will often appeal to the “inspiration” of the Holy Spirit as a helper in the electing of books collected in the canon, however, inspiration is never mentioned by the Fathers as a criterion. This does not mean that the letters were not inspired, but the early Church does not seem to have deemed that as grounds for the Bible’s uniqueness. But doesn’t Saint Paul say, “All Scripture is God breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16). Of course, this verse is directed at the OT and not the NT. It is also of great interest that when the Fathers did use the word inspiration, they did so only in cases where a decision was being made to accept or reject something. For example, when Nestorius was condemned as a heretic, he was done so by a council of Church Fathers under the inspiration of God. What is important to take away from this part of the discussion is that what was codified as canonical was done so by ecumenical councils of the Fathers under the guise of the Holy Spirit. So without rambling on too long, our basic version of the canon was truly ratified at the regional Councils of Hippo and Carthage. Even though a canonical list was essentially complete for both Testaments, some disputes were made about Revelation, 2 Peter, 3 John, Jude and James. Some churches such as the Orthodox Church while accepting Revelation as canonical, chose to not read from it during the Divine liturgy on Sunday mornings. While most New Testament books are settled, many Protestant Bible’s lack a number of OT books. These books were eliminated by Martin Luther a condemned heretic who took the liberty under his own criterion that these books were not inspired, however, the Catholic and Orthodox churches accept these as inspired (lower footing) because they were quoted from and used by Jesus, the Apostles and the early Church in the OT work known as LXX or the Septuagint. Of course, the Protestant objection to these books is that there are no direct quotes from Jesus in them, but as Bruce Metzger has correctly pointed out that argument fails because there were many OT books Jesus did not quote from—so should those be eradicated from the Bible too? What is quite interesting is that Jesus did quote from the deuterocanonical books when He was challenged by the Sadducees in Mark 12:18-22 which is a direct quote from Tobit and Jesus did not dismiss as legend. All early Church Fathers accepted the deuterocanonical books as inspired Scripture and that is why Protestants should too. Another argument levied by Protestants is that God was silent during the intertestamental period, therefore, those books should be rejected. That argument is an argument from circularity where you assume what you’re trying to prove. But how do you know that God was silent? it is only being assumed that at a certain point God was going to stop speaking or giving His Word. So the reason the Church has accepted these works as canonical is because that is how they were handed down to us from the Fathers. I often hear Christians cite Revelation as a means of adding or subtracting from God's Word as a grave punishment, but is it possible that the Protestant tradition has subtracted from the Word of God? Martin Luther also tried to eliminate another work accepted by the Church, the Book of Saint James. He did so because it seemed to undermine his doctrine of Justification by "Faith Alone", in fact Luther even added the word "alone" to his translation to the Bible to solidify his belief in justification by faith alone. That is the problem when people as opposed to Councils take matters into their own hands and try handling and shaping the Word of God by their own volition.
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