Why does the New Testament contain some books, but not others? Why do we have Timothy, but not the likes of Judas? What makes Ezra worthy but not Judith, Tobit or the Maccabees? There have been a variety of answers to this question proposed by laymen. Not all of them possessing merit. Perhaps some can recall the story in which some Christians claimed that at the First Council of Nicaea they took all the books they had and set them upon a table. In some renditions the books that fell off where not included and in others renditions they closed the door and the gospel magically appeared on the table while the others vanished. Neither of these accounts are of course accurate. In this paper we’ll have an examination of the real history, if not brief, of the New Testament Canon.
Who Needs Canon?
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Before we begin however, we must lay some groundwork by setting terms and understanding.
To being with a canon is not a cannon , a small little note, but the frequency in which one is misspelt for the other is surprisingly common. With that out of the way we can tackle more serious misconceptions; the use of Canon did not originate from Christianity. The early church had the Jewish Old Testament in the form of the Septuagint as a model. For example you will not find the book of Enoch in many Torah . Additionally as just how earlier it was stated that the founding of the canon wasn’t wholly in the divine, it was neither wholly done by man and man alone. It was not done in an arbitrary fashion like you or I would choose our favorite movies. For the early Church fathers the books included in the canon were required to possess and pass a certain criteria; Inspiration, Authority, church usage, and the Rule of
Faith Out of the Criteria one of the least important ones may come to a surprise. Inspiration though used to determine if a text could be ‘worthy’ of being canonical. The text being considered inspired did not instantaneously become ‘canon’. Or as Metzger puts it “It will have been noticed that in the preceding discussion concerning criteria used by early Christians in discerning the limits of the canon, nothing was said concerning inspiration. Though this silence may at first sight seem to be strange, the reason for it arises from the circumstance that, while the Fathers certainly agreed that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were inspired, they did not seem to have regarded inspiration as the ground of the Bible’s uniqueness.” [Metzger. 254]
The Bible: The Old Testament. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah Lawall et al. Vol 1. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1999. 47-97.
In the two millennia since the Christian Church has existed, different leaders and sects have often argued over giving canonical status to the extra-biblical books known as the Apocrypha. The books in question are as follows: 1stand 2nd Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Song of the 3 Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasseh, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, and additions to Esther. These books range in literary character from the historical to the apocalyptic and contain many stories and wisdoms.
Covenant according in bible's point of view is a promise made by God to man. According to the book of Genesis, Chapter 6 Verse 13, as a result of human's disobedient and evil ways on earth, God had planned to put an end to humanity with flood. The covenants between God and Noah was established in Genesis Chapter 9 Verse 11. God promised Noah and his descendants, never again would he destroy the earth by flood of water because of the pleasant sacrifice offered to God by Noah. God also confirmed his covenant by putting up signs in the sky in the form of a rainbow. The reason Noah and his family weren’t destroyed in the flood was because Noah found grace in God's sight. What this means is that God do not establish any kind of covenant with just anyone. Clearly Abel, Noah and Abraham were unshakable, upright and obedient towards God’s command.
New International Version: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
Silva, Moisés. Philippians. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.
Metzger, B. (1997). The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. New York.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version. Michael D. Coogan, editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
The gathering of books of the New Testament was arisen in the end of the second century, A.D. The church influential established books they believed were built on eyewitness versions of the events we read today, while discarding many Christian texts.
...her diverse literature. The Christian Old Testament organizes the books according to their type of literature: the Pentateuch, corresponding to the Torah; historical books; poetical or wisdom books; and prophetical books. Some have perceived in this table of contents a sensitivity to the historical perspective of the books: first those that concern the past; then, the present; and then, the future. The Protestant and Roman Catholic versions of the Old Testament place the books in the same sequence, but the Protestant version includes only those books found in the Bible of Judaism. The New Testament includes the four Gospels; the Acts of the Apostles, a history of early Christianity; Epistles, or letters, of Paul and other writers; and an apocalypse, or book of revelation. Some books identified as letters, particularly the Book of Hebrews, are theological treatises.
In this paper, there will be a discussion about the canonization of the New Testament. Along with an investigation into who was involved in this process. The people and institutions looked at will include the following: Marcion, Irenaeus, Origen, Synod of Hippo, and God. First, let us look at the canonization of the New Testament. The first available list of the New Testament books is called the Muratorian Canon and it dates somewhere around A.D. 150.
Harris, Stephen L. The New Testament: A Student's Introduction. 4th ed. Sacramento, California: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Some believed that there are so many good reasons to study the Old Testament. For one reason the Old Testament lays the foundation for our teaching and also laid the foundation for what was to come. The Old Testament texts were sacred to the Jewish beliefs and practices. The Old Testament provided us with important facts, details and information that were needed in order to understand the New Testament. So what is the point of studying the New Testament of the bible? Perhaps it was to gives us a better background and understanding of why the Jews had been waiting on their Messiah to come.