The canon of the Bible was the product of historic discernment on the part of various religious groups of which traditional writings were to be considered "inspired" by God as special revelation to man.
The Jewish Bible (Tanach): The Jewish Bible reached its current form in the 2nd Century BC but was not canonically closed until after the destruction of the Temple when the rabbinic groups meeting at Jamnia tried to piece together what was left of Judaism once the priests (Sadducees) were wiped out and the Temple irrevocably destroyed. They reconsidered the canonical status of several books including Esther, Song of Songs, 1&2 Chronicles, Ecclesiates. They also explored the canonicity of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon.
They ultimately used the following criteria for canonicity of Jewish books:
The book had to be:
The Christian Bible: Gentile Christians formed their own scriptures gradually over the first 4 centuries. By the 2nd Century, the Greek Translation of the Jewish OT (The Septuagint: LXX) with varying lists of Christian texts was the common Christian Bible. Contrary to earlier scholarship, it has been shown by A.C. Sundberg at Harvard that the Christian OT in the 2nd Century was not taken over from Alexandrian Judaism but was formed by the Christians themselves probably on reflection on the teachings of Christ on the Sermon on the Mount/Plain. The Christian OT was larger than the Jewish Bible because the Christians discerned for themselves the inspiration of what have been called the Deuterocanonical Books. It is erroneous to claim that St Athanasius determined the NT Canon, for he was just one scholar among many who had an opinion. Actually, the local Council of Hippo in 393 AD represents the consensus of the Church on the Canon. This Canon was the long one later accepted at the Council of Trent in 1546 for the Catholic Church and include all the Books of scripture, not just the NT. The decision here was referred to the "Transmarine Church" (Rome) for final confirmation. The decision at Hippo was endorsed by the subsequent 3rd and 4th Councils of Carthage and the Council of Rome. This Canon became the standard until the Reformation.
The protestant reformers rejected the traditional Christian Catholic Canon and eliminated the Deutero-canonical books because:
For a full description of where the Bible came from, I would recommend a book called Where We Got The Bible by Henry Graham.
The facts of the matter are that by the time of Christ, the Jews outside Israel were using the LXX, the Greek version of the Scriptures, that included the seven books that were removed by Luther and the reformers.
Answer for yourself: The question that needs to be asked, is "When does the canon of the Old Testament end?" How would the Jews know?
Answer for yourself: If the Old Testament canon ends with the coming of Christ, then who has authority in the New Testament times to determine what the scriptures are?
Answer for yourself: Why do you assume that a New Testament "exists" that can be considered to be the "inspired word of God" as was the writings of Moses?
As we look at history, the facts of history, we see that the New Testament was determined at the Gentile Roman Catholic Church's councils of Hippo and Carthage during the 4th and 5th centuries as detailed above. It was these Gentile Catholic Church Councils who determined which of the books written during the Apostolic times were "inspired by God or not". These councils gave us the New Testament and confirmed the canon of the Old Testament, which has been reaffirmed through all the Catholic Councils and definitively again at the Council of Trent to refute the reformers.
Answer for yourself: Now for a big question. If you cannot accept nor condone the religious doctrines as taught by Roman Catholicism then are you aware that you accept their book...the New Testament? Have you ever really looked a the doctrines as taught by the Catholic Church and thought that these same people who were definitely "off" theologically were the same ones to give you your New Testament Scriptures...did the Holy Spirit give them this "book" but failed to straighten them out on their "religious" beliefs or have their religious beliefs crept into the pages of the New Testament and you not know it?
Answer for yourself: The real question is: Who had authority delegated to them from Yeshua; the Rabbis, the Gentile Catholic Church or the Protestant Reformers? No where in the New Testament do we find authority delegated to Gentiles to decide the course for the faith. Let us never forget that Yeshua instructs us, even before he corrects some of the Pharisees, yet not all, that it is...
"THE PHARISEES THAT SET IN MOSES' SEAT." (Matt. 23:2...The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: ALL therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, observe and do;...).
Notice, he did not say that the Catholic Church or the Protestant reformers, or Greek proselytes sit in Moses' seat! The reason why the authority had to reside with Israel and the Jews is demonstrated in many Scriptures, even in the New Testament. Take for example, Rom. 9:3:
"Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service (worship) of God, and the promises (covenants), whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Messiah came, WHO IS OVER ALL, .."
THINK....written after the cross!
It is very evident from this one Scripture alone, that Paul considered Israel as the one God chose to entrust His revelation with; not only that, but it would be Israel who would be OVER ALL other peoples as a "light" to direct their way to God. Since it was to Israel that the Law and covenants were given, who best able to teach and interpret such but a Jew, and not a Gentile. Let us not forget, in fact we are admonished to "remember" in Eph. 2:11-12 that ...
as Gentiles that we all were "in times past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time we were without Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."
Now, let us be objective about this next question:
Answer for yourself: Does the above Biblical definition of a Gentile sound like it is someone Yeshua would put in charge of rightly dividing God's Word that had been handed down, protected, and cherished since the Garden, even Sinai?
Answer for yourself: How could such strangers to covenants, laws, and the religion of Israel be entrusted with making such important decisions without prior preparation? It is easy to see that such Gentiles lacked the "tools" of knowledge and understanding to rightly divide the Word of Truth; thus in Acts 15:21 we find James' admonition that Gentiles coming to the faith of Israel attend the Synagogue on Sabbaths where they will be instructed in "Moses," thereby learning those necessary things needed to properly life a life pleasing to God as well as coming to the knowledge of God which is necessary to correctly understand and interpret the Bible that existed in their day (a Hebrew Bible). Remember, they were pagans and Greeks without such backgrounds, ill equipped to render an authoritative decision about anything connected with Israel.
Now, another big question must be answered:
Answer for yourself: If such Gentiles were ill-equipped to become authorities of Israel's religion since they were so deficient in the traditions, customs, beliefs, covenants, laws, and manners concerning Israel's faith, they how you discount this and allow Gentiles to take over the faith of Yeshua following 70 A.D. when the Temple was destroyed and all Jewish authorities exiled from Israel?
Answer for yourself: What possible qualifications could they have possess that would allow them to "take-over" for the Rabbis who set in Moses's seat, after all, it had only been since 50 A.D. (only twenty years) that Gentiles had been given the faith of Yeshua? Let us understand, at the most, the training and competence of Gentile religious leaders in Israel could not be more than 20 years. This is unthinkable when compared to Biblical truths that had been handed down as well as lived four for thousands of years by the Jews!
Therefore, in the mouth of two witnesses (Yeshua and Paul) we confirm that the Jews were given the spiritual authority for all mankind, and not the Gentile! Yeshua said and meant: "Salvation is of the Jews."
This questions now become easier to answer. The Protestant Reformers did NOT have authority from Yeshua, neither did the Gentile Catholic Church to change, alter, replace, add to, or take away from the revelation of God "entrusted to holy men of old." Upon much study you will find, as I did, that nothing they did is consistent with divinely inspired inspiration that was given to Israel. The Gentile Catholic Church Councils could not agree over even what books were to be in the Bible; their doctrines have changed, and they did not even claim authority or inspiration from God to know what the true Bible was.
The Catholic Church ERRONEOUSLY BELIEVES that they were given authority by Yeshua in Matt. 16:16-20, when Yeshua supposedly established his Church upon the rock of Peter. This "office," as determined by the Catholic Church, is currently (erroneously I might add) believed to have given Peter the "headship" of the Church. The last time I looked at the Bible, the Messiah is head of the church, and not Peter. The Catholic Church's big mistake is when they considered Peter to be the first Pope, when all that Yeshua is doing, if anything, is reaffirming to the Jew-Peter that Yeshua's church and called out people will be built upon himself; the Messiah of God; the rock of God's revelation to mankind. What they fail to overlook, is that it was James, the Lord's brother, who was put in charge of the first Messianic Church in Jerusalem, and not Peter. If anyone was the "first Pope," it would be James and not Peter. The Church was founded by Yeshua, not by Constantine or the Roman Catholic Church, and anyone who believes this error simply does not know history. Constantine merely legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Now the question you must ask yourself if you do not trust the authority of the Gentile Roman Catholic Church to determine for you the course of your spiritual life:
Answer for yourself:
Let us not forget that Yeshua appointed James the head of his church in this world. Surely Yeshua would not have appointed a "devil" to head and oversee his church!
Answer for yourself: Should we trust such men as the early Greek Gentile Church Fathers and Luther to determine for us what we are to believe in our churches today when a little study will reveal that they violated repeatedly the commandments in the Bible and the religion of Yeshua?
Sadly, some of the writings that the early Jewish and Jewish-Gentile church considered inspired and relied upon as their "authorities" were not deemed inspired by these Greek philosophical-religious scholars and were not preserved. Many of the books deemed "inspired" by the original Jewish church are today lost and not in the Bibles we carry.
Answer for yourself: Why not?
I have one question that is playing greatly on my mind and it deals with those books that were written and not included in our Bibles.
Answer for yourself: Why were these books not chosen, and what criteria was used that caused their elimination from our Bibles today? Concerning those books which were chosen, why were they?
Answer for yourself: Who got to decide which books were chosen?
You are probably aware that the Catholic and Jewish Bibles have books that are not in the Christian Bible.
Answer for yourself: Which ones are they and why are these books excluded from the Christian Bible? To answer these questions, we must examine the Bible as well as the canonization process even more in depth than before. Let us first get an over-view of the development of our Bibles.
There are many books various early Christian churches considered as canonical, or as possible additions to the Testaments. In some churches a few of these DID make it into their Scriptures. Some of these may be known to you by other names, but these are the most generally used English translations of the titles. These are not the Apocrypha, but known as the Pseudepigrapha or other names. The word Pseudepigrapha, meaning "books with false titles," refers to books similar in type to those of the Bible whose authors gave them the names of persons of a much earlier period in order to enhance their authority. Among the best known are 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh.
The term "Pseudepigrapha" is applied to many Jewish and Jewish-Christian books written in the period 200 B.C. to 200 A.D. These Jewish books include Jubilees, Enoch, Psalms of Solomon, Assumption (or Testament) of Moses, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Sibylline Oracles, and the Apocalypse of Baruch. Fragments of the Damascus Document have been found among the DEAD SEA SCROLLS.
Other Pseudepigrapha exist in Greek, Slavonic, and other languages, many of them revisions of Jewish books. These include the Apocalypse of Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Ascension of Isaiah. The Gospel of Thomas and the Protoevangelium of James contain many legends about Yeshua and Mary and show the influence of GNOSTICISM, as does the Apocalypse of Adam. The Gospel of Nicodemus is composed of the Acts of Pilate and the Harrowing of Hell. The Pseudepigrapha are important for the light they throw on Judaism and early Christianity. The Epistle of Jude, for example, reflects a knowledge of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses, and it found its way into our Bibles, but not without a struggle.
Many of these books are lost to us today and we only know of their names, however, many have been preserved and can be studied today as well. Remember, many were considered "Scripture" by the early believers in Yeshua (Yeshua).
Because of their Jewishness, many, if not all in some circles, are considered as heretic by most Christian churches, but then so too are some of the most "popular" New Testament texts, by other Christian churches, like the Revelation of St John which only got included in the first place as a kind of horse trade between Eastern and Western divisions of the early Christian Catholics of various flavors at Nicene and Carthage. The point is that some Jewish-Christian church or another, before Rome took over, considered each of these as Scripture one time or another. The most Fundamentalist of Protestants love to condemn so much else of the Roman Catholic Church, yet they meekly Roman Catholic authority on what is, and what is not Canonical Scripture. Why?
It was Jerome, who putting the Catholic Latin Vulgate together, arbitrarily threw texts he didn't like into the Apocrypha, yet still keeping them in the Bible. They remained in the genuine "King James" Bibles until the American Bible Society chopped them out in the early 19th century (along with significant editing of the text--yet this is the one usually referred to as the "genuine" King James Version!). The Puritans and their kin had Special Editions of their Bibles created without these books in them, even before the 1611.
The information being presented to you should make you wonder what ELSE they didn't tell you in Sunday School and Bible Study!
Let us examine many of the books that were considered "inspired" by those of the churches of the first several centuries.
Answer for yourself: You should ask yourself a question as you look over these books..."have I read any of these books before, and if not, why not since they were considered "canon" by the earliest believers?"
More to follow.