1. Who decide what books go into the Bible ? So why do we put Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John into the Bible But gospels by Peter and Thomas do not go into the Bible ?

2. Canon Canon is a list of authoritative books Canon of the New Testament = the set of books found in the present day Bible As you know, there are many other “gospels” besides Matthew, Mark, Luke and John So WHO decided on the Canon ?

3. Spread of false teaching False teaching is not new and happened very early – see 2Peter 2:1 (People loves to adapt ideas to suit oneself) One very early stray teaching on Jesus is by combining Greek philosophy on knowledge – Gnotics (everyone is “god” and you can be saved by finding knowledge)

4. NT Canon: When ? Constantine became emperor of entire Roman Empire in 324 A.D. He had a dream that told him that if he would fight using the CROSS as battle emblem, he would be victorious After Constantine became emperor, he established Christianity as official religion in 325 A.D. He called together and presided over the Council of Nicaea that 300 bishops attended

5. NT Canon: How ? Bishops at the Council of Nicaea decided on the NT canon using these criterias: –Author of the book must either know Jesus personally (a disciple) or must be a companion of a desciple. (writing – letters and commentaries - by later bishops excluded) –The book itself must be WIDELY used throughout the christian community at that time. (Writings such as gospel of Thomas, gospel of Peter, etc. excluded)

6. OT Canon: How ? This one is easy: –The Jews have already defined (through centuries of tradition) which books belongs to their Holy Scripture. –The Old Testament is the same set of books as the Jewish Scripture

7. Summary The set of books in the Old Testament are decided by Jewish tradition (God’s chosen people) The set of books in the New Testament were decided long ago by CAREFUL deliberation using very STRINGENT criteria (rest assured that your Bible does not false teaching)