THE OLD TESTAMENT
When it comes to the Old Testament, Jesus Christ affirmed the Jewish Scriptures of His day—consisting of the very same content that is in our Old Testaments today.
A study of the gospels shows that, throughout His ministry, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament in its entirety (Matt. 5:17–18)—including its historical reliability (cf. Matt. 10:15; 19:3–5; 12:40; 24:38–39), prophetic accuracy (Matt. 26:54), sufficiency (Luke 16:31), unity (Luke 24:27, 44), inerrancy (Matt. 22:29; John 17:17), infallibility (John 10:35), and authority (Matt. 21:13, 16, 42). He affirmed the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets and all that was written in them; clearly seeing the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God (Matt. 15:16; Mark 7:13; Luke 3:2; 5:1; etc.).
There is a cluster of about 14 books, known as the Apocrypha, which were written some time between the close of the Old Testament (after 400 B.C.) and the beginning of the New. They were never considered as part of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Jews themselves clearly ruled them out by the confession that there was, throughout that period, no voice of the prophets in the land. They looked forward to a day when “a faithful prophet” or the “Messiah” should appear.
Why don’t we accept the Apocrypha even though they may be in the Roman Catholic Bible. Significantly, the first century Jews did not consider the books of what is called the “Apocrypha” to be Scripture. Jesus Himself never affirmed or cited he Apocryphal books – and neither do any of the other writers of the New Testament. Many of the early church fathers did not regard the Apocryphal books as being authoritative either. Even the fifth-century scholar Jerome (who translated the Latin Vulgate — which became the standard Roman Catholic version of the Middle Ages) acknowledged that the Apocryphal books were not to be regarded as either authoritative or Scripture. So we accept the Scriptures of the Old Testament on the basis of our Lord’s authoritative affirmation of it. And we reject the authority of the Apocryphal books based on the absence of His affirmation or affirmation of the apostles. After Malachi no other books were added and during the Intertestamental period there was no revelation or voice from God through any prophet. The first Century Jewish historian and scholar Josephus, writing around A.D. 90, clearly stated in his defense of Judaism that, the Scriptures, what we refer to as the Old Testament, had divine authority and acceptance. Since there are literally hundreds of direct quotations or clear allusions to Old Testament passages by Jesus and the apostles, it is evident what the early Christians thought of the Hebrew Scriptures.
For the Jews, therefore, Scripture as a revelation from God through the prophets ended around 450 B.C. with the close of the book of Malachi. This was the Bible of Jesus and His disciples, and it was precisely the same in content as our Old Testament.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
Other alleged “gospels” were written long after the time of the apostles (2nd -4th centuries A.D.) For example,the so-called “Gospel of Thomas”, of which there are references to more than one version, has distinctly Gnostic influences. In short, the Gnostics believed that the flesh is bad, but the spirit is good. As a result, they denied that Jesus truly came in the flesh, a position the early church countered by writings such as 1 John.
The transmission of the New Testament documents through history is astounding. Not only do we have thousands of manuscript copies, as well as thousands more fragments or portions of the New Testament, but in comparing the New Testament copies we have today in various languages with those available centuries ago we can see the message remains intact. When it comes to transmission and translation, then, we can indeed trust the documents.
Our Lord not only affirmed the Jewish canon of the Old Testament, He also promised that He would give additional revelation to His church through His authorized representatives—namely, the apostles.
John 14:25–26 – “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
Jesus promised the apostles that the Holy Spirit would help them remember all the things that He had said to them. Two chapters later, in the same context, the Lord promised the apostles that He would give them additional revelation through the Holy Spirit:
John 16:12–15 – “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
Where is that additional revelation found? It is found in the New Testament epistles, wherein the Spirit of Christ guided the apostles to provide the church with inspired truth.
The New Testament was pre-authenticated by Christ Himself, as He authorized the apostles to be His witnesses in the world (Matt. 28:18–19; Acts 1:8). We embrace and submit to the New Testament writings because they were penned by Christ’s authorized representatives, being inspired by the Holy Spirit in the same way as the Old Testament prophets (cf. 2 Pet. 3:19–21).
Every book of the New Testament was written under apostolic authority—either by an apostle or someone closely linked to their apostolic ministry. Thus, we submit to these books because they come from Christ’s authorized representatives. In submitting to them, we are submitting to the Lord Himself. The reason there are no additional books is because there are no longer any apostles in the church today, and have not been since the end of the first century.
Why Did It Take So Long?
The New Testament was not all neatly printed and bound shortly after the last apostle (John) died. Nor were they sent out by the pallet load into all the bookstores and kiosks of the Roman Empire. Here are six reasons why it took time for the books of the New Testament to be gathered together.
1. The originals were scattered across the whole empire. The Roman Empire reached from Britain to Persia, and it would have taken time for any church even to learn about all the letters Paul had written, let alone gather copies of them.
2. No scroll could easily contain more than one or two books. It would be impossible to fit more than one Gospel onto a scroll, and even when codices (books) were used, the entire New Testament would be extremely bulky and very expensive to produce. It was therefore far more convenient for New Testament books to be copied singly or in small groups.
3. No one church or leader bossed all the others. There were strong and respected leaders among the churches, but Christianity had no supreme bishop who dictated to all the others which books belonged to the Scriptures and which did not.
4. The early leaders assumed the authority of the Gospels and the apostles. It was considered sufficient to quote the Gospels and apostles, since their authority was self-evident.
5. Only when the heretics attacked the truth was the importance of a Scriptural collection appreciated. It was not until the mid-second century that the Gnostics and others began writing their own pseudepigrapha (false writing); this prompted orthodox leaders to become alert to the need for stating which books had already been recognized across the churches.
In the light of all this, the marvel is not how long it took before the majority of the churches acknowledged a completed list of the New Testament, but how soon after their writing each book was accepted as authoritative.
· There were only ever the four Gospels used by the churches for the life and ministry of Jesus. Other pseudo-gospels were written but these were immediately rejected by the churches across the empire as spurious.
· Tertullian of Carthage, around A.D. 200, was the first serious expositor and used all the NT books. They were equated with the Old Testament, and he referred to “the majesty of our Scriptures.” He clearly possessed a collection of New Testament books like ours.
· By A.D. 240, Origen of Alexandria was using all our 27 books, and only those, as Scripture alongside the Old Testament books.
And these are just examples of many of the church leaders at this time.
What Made a Book “Scripture”?
A study of the gospels shows that, throughout His ministry, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament in its entirety (Matt. 5:17–18)—including its historical reliability (cf. Matt. 10:15; 19:3–5; 12:40; 24:38–39), prophetic accuracy (Matt. 26:54), sufficiency (Luke 16:31), unity (Luke 24:27, 44), inerrancy (Matt. 22:29; John 17:17), infallibility (John 10:35), and authority (Matt. 21:13, 16, 42). He affirmed the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets and all that was written in them; clearly seeing the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God (Matt. 15:16; Mark 7:13; Luke 3:2; 5:1; etc.).
There is a cluster of about 14 books, known as the Apocrypha, which were written some time between the close of the Old Testament (after 400 B.C.) and the beginning of the New. They were never considered as part of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Jews themselves clearly ruled them out by the confession that there was, throughout that period, no voice of the prophets in the land. They looked forward to a day when “a faithful prophet” or the “Messiah” should appear.
Why don’t we accept the Apocrypha even though they may be in the Roman Catholic Bible. Significantly, the first century Jews did not consider the books of what is called the “Apocrypha” to be Scripture. Jesus Himself never affirmed or cited he Apocryphal books – and neither do any of the other writers of the New Testament. Many of the early church fathers did not regard the Apocryphal books as being authoritative either. Even the fifth-century scholar Jerome (who translated the Latin Vulgate — which became the standard Roman Catholic version of the Middle Ages) acknowledged that the Apocryphal books were not to be regarded as either authoritative or Scripture. So we accept the Scriptures of the Old Testament on the basis of our Lord’s authoritative affirmation of it. And we reject the authority of the Apocryphal books based on the absence of His affirmation or affirmation of the apostles. After Malachi no other books were added and during the Intertestamental period there was no revelation or voice from God through any prophet. The first Century Jewish historian and scholar Josephus, writing around A.D. 90, clearly stated in his defense of Judaism that, the Scriptures, what we refer to as the Old Testament, had divine authority and acceptance. Since there are literally hundreds of direct quotations or clear allusions to Old Testament passages by Jesus and the apostles, it is evident what the early Christians thought of the Hebrew Scriptures.
For the Jews, therefore, Scripture as a revelation from God through the prophets ended around 450 B.C. with the close of the book of Malachi. This was the Bible of Jesus and His disciples, and it was precisely the same in content as our Old Testament.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
Other alleged “gospels” were written long after the time of the apostles (2nd -4th centuries A.D.) For example,the so-called “Gospel of Thomas”, of which there are references to more than one version, has distinctly Gnostic influences. In short, the Gnostics believed that the flesh is bad, but the spirit is good. As a result, they denied that Jesus truly came in the flesh, a position the early church countered by writings such as 1 John.
The transmission of the New Testament documents through history is astounding. Not only do we have thousands of manuscript copies, as well as thousands more fragments or portions of the New Testament, but in comparing the New Testament copies we have today in various languages with those available centuries ago we can see the message remains intact. When it comes to transmission and translation, then, we can indeed trust the documents.
Our Lord not only affirmed the Jewish canon of the Old Testament, He also promised that He would give additional revelation to His church through His authorized representatives—namely, the apostles.
John 14:25–26 – “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
Jesus promised the apostles that the Holy Spirit would help them remember all the things that He had said to them. Two chapters later, in the same context, the Lord promised the apostles that He would give them additional revelation through the Holy Spirit:
John 16:12–15 – “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
Where is that additional revelation found? It is found in the New Testament epistles, wherein the Spirit of Christ guided the apostles to provide the church with inspired truth.
The New Testament was pre-authenticated by Christ Himself, as He authorized the apostles to be His witnesses in the world (Matt. 28:18–19; Acts 1:8). We embrace and submit to the New Testament writings because they were penned by Christ’s authorized representatives, being inspired by the Holy Spirit in the same way as the Old Testament prophets (cf. 2 Pet. 3:19–21).
Every book of the New Testament was written under apostolic authority—either by an apostle or someone closely linked to their apostolic ministry. Thus, we submit to these books because they come from Christ’s authorized representatives. In submitting to them, we are submitting to the Lord Himself. The reason there are no additional books is because there are no longer any apostles in the church today, and have not been since the end of the first century.
Why Did It Take So Long?
The New Testament was not all neatly printed and bound shortly after the last apostle (John) died. Nor were they sent out by the pallet load into all the bookstores and kiosks of the Roman Empire. Here are six reasons why it took time for the books of the New Testament to be gathered together.
1. The originals were scattered across the whole empire. The Roman Empire reached from Britain to Persia, and it would have taken time for any church even to learn about all the letters Paul had written, let alone gather copies of them.
2. No scroll could easily contain more than one or two books. It would be impossible to fit more than one Gospel onto a scroll, and even when codices (books) were used, the entire New Testament would be extremely bulky and very expensive to produce. It was therefore far more convenient for New Testament books to be copied singly or in small groups.
3. No one church or leader bossed all the others. There were strong and respected leaders among the churches, but Christianity had no supreme bishop who dictated to all the others which books belonged to the Scriptures and which did not.
4. The early leaders assumed the authority of the Gospels and the apostles. It was considered sufficient to quote the Gospels and apostles, since their authority was self-evident.
5. Only when the heretics attacked the truth was the importance of a Scriptural collection appreciated. It was not until the mid-second century that the Gnostics and others began writing their own pseudepigrapha (false writing); this prompted orthodox leaders to become alert to the need for stating which books had already been recognized across the churches.
In the light of all this, the marvel is not how long it took before the majority of the churches acknowledged a completed list of the New Testament, but how soon after their writing each book was accepted as authoritative.
· There were only ever the four Gospels used by the churches for the life and ministry of Jesus. Other pseudo-gospels were written but these were immediately rejected by the churches across the empire as spurious.
· Tertullian of Carthage, around A.D. 200, was the first serious expositor and used all the NT books. They were equated with the Old Testament, and he referred to “the majesty of our Scriptures.” He clearly possessed a collection of New Testament books like ours.
· By A.D. 240, Origen of Alexandria was using all our 27 books, and only those, as Scripture alongside the Old Testament books.
And these are just examples of many of the church leaders at this time.
What Made a Book “Scripture”?
At first, the churches had no need to define what made a book special and equal to the Old Testament Scriptures. If the letter came from Paul or Peter, that was sufficient. However, it was not long before others began writing additional letters and gospels either to fill the gaps or to propagate their own ideas. Some tests became necessary, and during the first 200 years, five tests were used at various times.
1. Apostolic—does it come under the authority of an apostle?
The first Christians asked, “Was it written by an apostle or under the direction of an apostle?” They expected this just as the Jews had expected theirs to be underwritten by the prophets. Paul was insistent that his readers should be reassured that the letters they received actually came from his pen (e.g., 2 Thessalonians 3:17).
2. Ancient—has it been used from the earliest times?
Most of the false writings were rejected simply because they were too new to be apostolic, written many years after the last apostle died. Early in the fourth century, Athanasius listed the New Testament as we know it today and claimed that these were the books “received by us through tradition as belonging to the Scriptures.”
3. Accepted—are most of the churches using it?
Since, as we have seen, it took time for letters to circulate among the churches, it is all the more significant that the 27 books were universally accepted well before the middle of the second century. When tradition carries the weight of the overwhelming majority of churches throughout the widely scattered Christian communities across the vast Roman Empire, with no one church controlling the beliefs of all the others, it has to be taken seriously.
CONCLUSION:
So … why these 66 books? Because God inspired them! They are His divine revelation. Christ confirmed that fact. He affirmed the Old Testament, and He authorized the New Testament through the apostles (cf. Heb. 1:1–2). The authority of the Lord Jesus Himself, then, is the basis for our confidence in the fact that the Bible we hold in our hands is indeed “All Scripture.”
It was not the Catholic church that determined the Scriptures. No, it is the authority of Christ Himself, the Lord of the church and the incarnate Son of God, on which the authority of Scripture rests.
It was not the Catholic church that determined the Scriptures. No, it is the authority of Christ Himself, the Lord of the church and the incarnate Son of God, on which the authority of Scripture rests.
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