The list of books in the Bible which are considered authoritative or capable of conveying religious truth make up the Biblical Canon. But in everyday usage this term refers to the “body of sacred books … which, after it has been decided on either by the general agreement of the members of the given religious body or by its official ecclesiastical institution, is considered as totally authoritative”. Or, in other words, canonization was the process of retaining what was to be read as the word of God and rejecting what was not. A canon is, once it’s fixed, traditionally “a list of books that are to be regarded as an authority…from which no more books are to be added, and out of which none are to be taken away.” This article, looks at how Jews and Christians of the pre-Talmudic area defined their OT and the period of the church from the New Testament times onward, who owned the right to determine the OT canon, what were the criteria and which were the confirmed councils and persons.
What Is the Biblical Canon?
By the time of the church father Origen, the Greek word for rule (κανών) was used in relation to the ‘rule of faith’ of a community/books but the word was not (as yet) used as ‘canon’ itself. By the 4th century it had been adopted as a title for the commends books of the Bible by the church fathers. In reality, a biblical canon is a collection of sacred books that a religious community has agreed are scripture. Early Jews referred to “collections of writings that were accepted and used by a particular community,” rather than a canon in name. These collections eventually came to be regarded as inspired and closed. In this manner, canonization vested scriptural authority in certain writings: when a book was received into the canon, it was “treated as fully authoritative” by the community, whereas books not placed in the canon were not thought to be divine.
How was the Canon of the Old Testament established?
The canonization of Judaism developed over time. The Pentateuch (Torah) and the Prophets were accepted early, and by the 2nd cent, b.c., the very latest writings (Daniel, ca. 165 b.c.) were in circulation. By the Second Temple period, Jewish practice had become well-defined within these dos and don’ts. The Jewish historian Josephus (c. 94 CE), writes that his people hold “only 22 books,” which is essentially the Protestant Old Testament (39 books when Christians count them; 24 when Jews do). The Greek Septuagint (the version for the diaspora) included additional writings. These Included Books (Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, etc.) were read in some Jewish communities and were not accepted into the Hebrew Bible. The main body of the canon ‘…was a more or less complete collection’ by the early Rabbinic period, and ‘this core was around 24 books’.Though some of the titles remained open to question – the Song of Songs, as well as Ecclesiastes, Divrei ha-Yamim, in some traditions Esther, and even Ezekiel and Proverbs – for well over a millennium, and even by some as late as the time of the Reformation.
Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls (pictured here on exhibit) represent a portion of the Old Testament from the 3rd–1st centuries BCE. These scrolls prove that Torah (Law) and the Prophets were copied and considered sacred well before even 100BCE- a scripture was developing! By 100–200 CE, it was up to the Jewish authorities to accept the Greek (Septuagint) scriptures as canonical, and they did so. Outside the canon, some Jews and Jewish groups used others (e.g. 1Enoch, Jubilees) as religious writings, but never claimed some of these apocrypha as addenda to their Bible.
How Was the Canon of the New Testament Established?
The New Testament developed during the early Christian period inn a complex process, through a ubiquitous authoritive consensus rather than any attempt to formulate a fixed and final list. The early Christians wrote many gospels, letters and other forms of literature, but over time, the core organically formed. The Muratorian fragment (an early canon list) of about 170AD already demonstrates that four Gospels and most of Paul’s letters were in use. Other writings were in circulation (Acts, Revelation, General Epistles) and church leaders used tests of orthodoxy. Among the key criteria were apostolic origin (link to Jesus’ apostles), conformity with orthodox teaching, and usage in the churches. This library of works was systematically catalogued: Origen (3rd c.), for example, listed which works were universally accepted, which were disputed. Even the 4th-century historian Eusebius included James, Jude, 2Peter, 2–3John, and Revelation on a list of “disputed” books (Ἀντιλεγόμενα) in early Christianity.
This page of the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus contains text from Matthew’s Gospel. It indexes the developing consensus around books of the New Testament.” In 367AD, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his 39th Festal Letter in which he provided a full list of precisely 27 books which he would label the New Testament. He y declared these books to be “canonical”, adding “beside them, no others may be added; nothing taken away”. In North Africa, the Old Testament was approved in the Council of Hippo (393) and the Councils of Carthage (397, 419), which also proposed a list of canonical New Testament books, that were similar to the current one. So by the end of the 4th century we have a 27-book New Testament that was universally acknowledged in the church (with marginal differences in less prominent traditions), standing in direct parallel to the list known today.
What Were Some of the Criteria Used in Canonization?
6) What criteria did Early Jewish and Christian leaders employed when considering books for acceptance into the canon?
Apostolicity: For a New Testament book, the author should have been an apostle (or at least someone very close to an apostle), and for an Old Testament book, the author must have been, for example, Moses or one of the prophets. This ensured an official pedigree.
Orthodoxy: What the book taught had to conform to the faith “rule” delivered in tradition. Any text that had doctrinal inconsistencies from core beliefs (e.g., works known to contradict established heretical doctrines) were denounced.
Catholicity: The book must be recognized and used in a variety of churches and communities. Sentiments which were confined to one area could not find favour.
Liturgical use: here the books more generally regarded as Eucharistic are more likely to be canonical. That was due to the fact that if the community to which the congregation belonged regularly listened to the text as Scripture, it counted toward acceptability.
Other considerations were antiquity; the older a text, the more authority it had, and manuscript evidence. It was not mechanical; it was conversation and mutual acknowledgment. Early Christians were beginning to “move from many candidate for inclusion to fewer”, to the received canon. For example, the early figure Marcion (mid-2nd century) recommended a shorter canon (Luke + some Pauline epistles, no Old Testament), which provoked the broader church to clarify its own list. Gradually, they became accepted as the norm for each tradition.
What Books Were Contested or Omitted?
Some writings were still contentious. Judaism was partially accepting of works such as Enoch and Jubilees (Qumran, for example) without ever placing them upon the rabbinc canon. Early Christianity treated many non-Epistolary texts as Scripture also: Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, 1Clement, etc., were regarded as sacred by some Churches. Yet these stayed outside of the proper canon. Of the New Testament, a term used for books of mixed reception was antilegomena (“spoken against”). “It is used by Eusebius in relation to James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, and Revelation.” In the end all of these were kept. Some gospels (e.g. Gospel of Thomas) and letters (e.g. of Paul to Alexandrians) on the other hand, even though they may have been occasionally cited, never gained canonical status because they were not apostolic in origin or were not in wide enough use.
Another great bone of contention was the Old Testament “Apocrypha” (or Deuterocanonical books). These are the additional books included in the Greek Septuagint, accepted by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, but not the Hebrew Bible: Tobit, Judith, 1–2Esdras (Ezra/Nehemiah), Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, 1–2Maccabees, (and additional portions of Esther/Daniel). These were not considered by Jewish authorities to be of canonical status. Most of them were adopted by early Christians in the West and East, and abandoned by Protestants at the Reformation. Another example would be the Council of Carthage in 397 which listed Tobit, Judith, 1–2Esdras, 1–2Maccabees (among others) as Old Testament Scripture. Luther subsequently shifted them to an “Apocrypha” appendix; Trent (1546) declared them definitively canonical. Eastern Orthodoxy also still considers the extended Septuagint to be the canon (which was decided at the 1672 Synod of Jerusalem).
How Was the Canon Formed?
The First Council of Nicaea (AD 325) is typically portrayed in art as the time that Scripture got decided, but it did not take up the matter of the biblical books. Instead, the process of canonization played out over centuries through a set process created by church leaders. The known books are talked about and quoted by early Christian writers (as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, etc.). By the late 200s early 300s many key milestones were in place: Athanasius’s Festal Letter listed the 27 New Testament books that we recognize today (367). Soon after, the North African Synods of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419) provided canonical lists for the Testaments, which are virtually identical to that of Rome.
The local decisions were soon ratified at Rome. For instance, a synod with Pope Damasus (382) compiled a catalog of books of scripture identical to Hippo/Carthage. Subsequently, The Councils of Rome (382) and Florence (1442) reaffirmed the same Old Testament canon. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (late 4th c.) contained all of the books of the old Septuagint (though it seems he preferred the Hebrew list, see below, he included the deuterocanon). After that time, the canon in the Western Church remained closed. The Council of Trent (1546) anathematized anyone “rejecting any of these books” and reasserted this same collection of Books of the Old and New Testament. Eastern Orthodoxy also specified the Septuagint as the basis for its Old Testament (with the 1672 Synod of Jerusalem also reaffirming the textual commonality of the deuterocanonical books with the long recension of the Old Testament by rejecting the shorter Protestant canon) To put it briefly, by the medieval period, both testaments were closed in every tradition, and the councils formalized very much what Christians already had been doing in practice.
The Bible as a Whole
After all, the Bible is a two-volume work (Old and New Testaments) with both making up one body of Scripture. The Jewish Tanakh (HB) has 24 books (5 Torah, 8 Prophets, 11 Writings) – its content is the same as the 39 books of the Christian OT (just presented differently). In some Christian Bibles (Catholic, Orthodox) not only the Hebrew-Bible section but also the Greek deuterocanonical books are included. The New Testament was compiled in 27 books (Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Revelation) widely accepted throughout Christendom. By 200AD the Muratorian fragment reveals that at least the four Gospels and much of the apostolic letters were already recognized as authoritative by the church. At the time of Athanasius, the 27-book New Testament was essentially settled – he went so far as to state “no one may add to them, and nothing may be taken away”. That is to say, the formation of the canon of both Testaments sought to determine what is the full, final Bible. When closed, these scriptures established the rule of faith; all else was among the things of indifferent.
Q: Why do Catholic Bibles have a few more books in its Old Testament than Protestant Bibles?
A: The big difference is obviously the Old Testament. Catholic Bibles have the seven deuterocanonicals of the Septuagint [Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, etc.] as scripture whereas protestants do not. Eastern Orthodox Bibles have those plus a few more (1 Esdras, Psalm 151). These differences arise in what their base canon is. Most Protestant Bibles follow the Jewish ordering of books (24 in number; 39 in number, according to the Christian counting) and the version of the canon found in the Masoretic Text, while the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include some or all of the deuterocanonical books in the Septuagint. The Catholic Church accepted the deuterocanon as equally canonical with the rest of the OT books at the council of Trent (1546); the Orthodox Church affirmed that those books were confirmed at Jerusalem (1672). The New Testament, however, is the virtually identical 27-book canon in all these churches.
Q.Who are the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books?
A: They are books of the Old Testament that are in the Septuagint (or Greek Old Testament), but not in the Hebrew Bible. Examples are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, and 1–2 Maccabees (with additions to Esther and Daniel). They were widely read in ancient times, but Jewish authorities rejected them from their canon. In Christianity, Catholics and Orthodox consider them “deuterocanonical” (part of the canon), while Protestants call them “Apocrypha” and do not include them. For instance, the Council of Carthage (397 AD) included Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Esdras, and 1–2 Maccabees among the canonical OT books, subsequently reaffirmed by Trent. Protestants have since removed them from their Old Testament.
Q: Which council or emperor early on chose the Bible’s books?
No Contrary to legend, no council — not even Nicaea in 325 — voted on the contents of the Bible. There is no “historical basis for saying Nicaea or Constantine “established the canon and created the Bible.” Instead it was accepted over the generations by custom and local authority. Church councils (such as Hippo in 393, Carthage in 397, and synods in Rome) merely confirmed the books that they were already reading in the churches. Regional lists are also the earliest sources witness to the existence of the same canon, as provided by Athansius (in 367) and African councils (in 390s). Later ecumenical councils, like Trent, just officially ratified those long/large used lists, but the contents were never a surprise – this was what Christians had been using the whole while.
Q. What is meant by saying the canon was “closed” or settled?
A: To declare a canon “closed” is to declare that no more books can be added to, or subtracted from, Scripture. In fact, by the time of the great councils the divine books had practically all been brought into the collection of the inspired writings. The Wassenaar Church leaders even made it clear they believed in this principle. For example, Athanasius(367 A D) cautioned about the New Testament list: he declared that “the 27 books… no one may add to them, and nothing may be taken away from them”. Subsequent councils reaffirmed that stability. The Council of Trent (1546) pronounced an anathema on anyone who rejected one of the received books. In brief, once the canon was ratified it was considered divinely stabilized.
Q. In this context, what are we to understand by the term “scriptural authority”?
A: “Scriptural authority” refers to what a community considers to be divinely inspired and normative writings. In other words, once a book was in the canon, it bore ultimate authority for faith and life. It was canonization that defined that boundary. The canonical books are the ones the church “considers to be fully authoritative”. Other books (even those that in a historical or moral sense they might have found instructive) were not equal in their eyes. As such, scriptural authority here is the authority of the received canon – these books and no others constituted the Word of God par excellence for the community.
