The New Testament canon is the set of 27 Biblical books from the first century that is considered to be the “inspired word of God.” What were the criteria for deciding what books should be canonized? To begin, it should be immediately noted that the church did not “determine” the canon of Scripture. This incorrect notion has been popularized in modern times by provocative movies and best-selling books. A more accurate understanding would be that the church recognized what books carried the qualities of inspiration and authority. New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce has stated, “The New Testament canon was not demarcated by the arbitrary decree of any Church Council. When at last a Church Council—the Synod of Hippo in A.D. 393—listed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, it did not confer upon them any authority which they did not already possess, but simply recorded their previously established canonicity."[1]
What qualities were necessary for a first-century book to be canonized as the inspired “word of God”? There were four major criteria for canonical selection. The first is apostolic authority. This simply means that a first-century apostle (or a close associate) must have written the book in question. For example, Matthew, John, Paul, James, and Peter were apostles and were responsible for writing what makes up most of the New Testament. In situations where the author was not an apostle (as was the case with Mark and Luke), they were known to be close associates with an apostle. The second major criterion is antiquity. This established that the writing emerged from the apostolic era/age of the eyewitnesses. There were many fanciful writings that surfaced in the second-century claiming to have been written by an apostle of Jesus, but their false testimony was well-known. Only a writing from the first-century would even be considered to be canonized. The third criterion is orthodoxy, in that, the writing must align with acceptable apostolic doctrine. Finally, the fourth criterion is catholicity, which states that the universal church had accepted the doctrine and found it edifying to their personal faith. Ultimately, there is no question that “Scripture is the Word of God because the Holy Spirit says so, not because the church says so.”[2] And the church was simply being faithful to this truth.
[1] Quoted in Kenneth Richard Samples, A World of Difference. (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2007), 115.
[2] Samples, 116.
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