FAQ on the Origins and Scope of Scripture

Question 1. How did the Bible physically come about?

Answer. There were various forms of material, papyrus and animal skins being a few. Thinner more durable material was expensive; however, the scroll was used even by Old Testament prophets. We must remember those writers served in royal courts and would have at least had some access, and Paul makes references to parchments in 2 Timothy 4:13. The codex (more like today’s book form) emerged in the first century, partly because of Christian writings. There are several books that discuss the material process.

Question 2. Why do we believe that our Bible as we have it is the only divine scripture out there?

Answer. There are certain objective qualities by which the Bible bears witness of its divine authorship. As the Westminster Confession summarizes, “the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof” (I.5). The Qur’an and Book of Mormon, for example, do not possess such qualities. Neither do the Apocryphal books added to the Roman Catholic Bible following the Council of Trent. There were certain criteria for canonical books.

Question 3. And what are those criteria?

Answer. Stated concisely, criteria for canonicity includes: (1) authorship of an Apostle, or one in the “apostolic circle,” (2) the book’s spiritually transformative character, (3) its orthodoxy in terms of consistency with the rest of the canon, and (4) that it was received by the universal church. It is important to note that such are objective qualities. That is to say they were recognized by the early church and thus received, not invested into the books by the church. It is also important to note that these criteria have a cumulative effect and it is not necessary that a biblical book’s author be known in all cases. The Old Testament book of Job and the New Testament book of Hebrews, while differing on a spectrum of what we know of their author, at least share this in common.

Question 4. But wasn’t the canon only agreed upon at the Council of Nicaea, and even then there were disputes all the way up to the Reformation?

Answer. The New Testament canon shows up in a few sources (Melito of Sardis; Irenaeus, Against Heresies) prior to the Council of Nicaea, and the list of Athanasius after. And Nicaea did not select the books but received the books already universally used by the churches. Church history shows that there was an early consensus about the New Testament canon. Certain books—including the four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, 1 Peter, and 1 John—were universally accepted, with almost no one doubting their Scriptural status. Some early believers, however, had questions about books such as Revelation and 2–3 John. By the middle of the fourth century A.D., the church had settled on the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, and the Protestant Reformers affirmed this canon just as the catholic tradition previously had. It was not until the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century that Rome officially endorsed the Apocryphal books. 

Question 5. But don’t the Hebrew Scriptures differ from our Old Testament?

Answer. The Hebrew canon does differ from the subsequent Old Testament agreed upon by the Jewish authority Josephus and Jerome’s Vulgate. However that difference has to do with ordering rather than content. The three divisions of the TNK into torah (Law), nevi’im (Prophets), and ketuvim (Writings) reflect a different priority of genre. If anything, the comparison of the two gives the student of Scripture increased perspective on the same progress of redemption. Aside from the two different angles into literary genre, there is the difference in consolidation of our Ezra-Nehemiah into one book, and the same for the singular books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. However, when we see these two differences for what they are, the actual substance of the canons are seen to be identical.

Question 6. But you admit there were disputed books of the New Testament early on?

Answer. While there were indeed disputed books in the first few centuries, that can be a bit misleading. The New Testament books we have today were received by the churches from the beginning, but the heresy of Marcionism (2nd century) challenged them for theological (not historical) reasons. The “catholic epistles” and Hebrews in particular find themselves in this class of books. That debate and the need for more official codification against that error can give the impression, to those unfamiliar with how enormous that Marcionite attack on the canon was, that these were just then being “included” in the third or fourth century. That is not the case.

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For Further Reading

1. Ryan Reeves & Charles E. Hill, Know How We Got Our Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2018).

2. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

3. Michael Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012)

4. ____________, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013).