One of the questions that I get most frequently from students is “How do we know that the books in the Bible are the right ones?” What they mean is how do we know that some books were not left out that should have been left in there and how do we know that others were not put in that should have been left out? This is a great question and deals with the area of canon. A canon is a rule and the question that is being asked is, “what rules were used to make sure that the books allowed into the Bible were really inspired?” This is a little more complex that it might first seem. For one thing, we know that there were letters from the Apostle Paul that are not included in the New Testament (he mentions other letters to the Corinthians which are not in existence today). If those letters should be discovered, would they be a part of the Bible? I say no. The Scripture is compete.
Of course all of this is really moot, because we would never be able to prove that a letter was actually written by the Apostle. The real question is, “What happened to other letters and books that were not included in the canon?” Most, if not all of them are still around and you can read them if you like. There are a couple of places where you can find more information about the process of what has come to be called “canonization.” First is an article in the newly started magazine BIBLE STUDY published by Logos software. If you would like to subscribe to this very good magazine, please just click through to the chart at the end of the blog. The second place to go, and this will be much more complete, is a book by the great scholar F. F. Bruce called The Canon of Scripture. Bruce will go into a great deal of detail about how the process took place and what books were left out and why.
Below you will find a link to a chart that will show you most of the books that were under consideration in the OT and NT canon. Click through to see the chart and to find out how to subscribe to the new magazine. It’s well worth the price.
Have a great new year,
DSL