The Canon Of Scripture The canon is the list of books accepted as Scripture, the books inspired by God. Jesus and the apostles accepted the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament, as the Word of God. After the founding of the church on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles and their associates to write our New Testament. It is apparent that the early church accepted these writings as inspired as soon as they were written.

The Canon Of Scripture The early post-apostolic writers quoted both Old and New Testament books as the authoritative Word of God. At first, they did not attempt to justify their use of various books, but as time went on, they recognized a need to establish exactly which ones they should consider as Scripture. Several factors motivated them to a consideration of the canon.

The Canon Of Scripture THE OLD TESTAMENT: With respect to the Old Testament, the post-apostolic writers had clear guidance. They accepted the books that the Jews had historically deemed to be the Word of God. (See Romans 3:1-2.) In this they followed the example of Jesus and the writers of the New Testament, who used the Old Testament to establish their teaching without giving any indication that their Scriptures were any different from what the Jews universally accepted.

The Canon Of Scripture THE NEW TESTAMENT: The New Testament definitely quotes as Scripture, or otherwise alludes to as authoritative, twenty-nine of our thirty-nine Old Testament books, or using the Hebrew enumeration, nineteen of twenty-four books. Of the remaining five Hebrew books, Ezra-Nehemiah and Ecclesiastes are possibly quoted or alluded to, and Lamentations was sometimes appended to Jeremiah, which is quoted. Only Esther and Song of Solomon definitely have no mention, and this means only that the New Testament authors had no occasion to use them for the specific purposes of their writings.1

The Canon Of Scripture Melito, bishop of Sardis about A.D. 170, produced the earliest Christian list of the Old Testament that we have, and it includes every book but Esther. Another list from about the same time or a little later (MS 54, published by Bryennios) lists all the books including Esther. The next list was drawn up by Origen, in the early third century, and his was identical to the Hebrew Bible except for an addition to Esther.2

The Canon Of Scripture Some Christian groups accepted as canonical or semicanonical a number of Jewish writings dating from about 200 B.C. to 30 B.C. and one from about A.D. 100. They are commonly called the Apocrypha. Some are additions to The Canon of Scripture biblical books. At the Council of Trent in 1546, the Roman Catholic Church officially accepted eleven of them as Scripture. The Protestants reject them as canonical.

The Canon Of Scripture

The Canon Of Scripture