The Christian canon and content of the Bible

THE CANON OF THE

BIBLE

AND

IT’S RELIABILITY

The Rev. Dr. Kevin Bergmann

August, 2019

INTRODUCTION

The Bible is the holy book for Christians throughout the world. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and 2010, there were 2.2 billion Christians alive in the world. As of August 2016, the World Population Review estimates that the total population of the world at that time was 7,346,200 35 million people. That would indicate that approximately 30% of the world’s population is Christian, making Christianity the largest single religious group on earth. That in itself makes the Bible a very important book with which to be familiar, since the likelihood is that all of us, especially in the United States and in Western society in general are highly likely to know Christian people whether or not we ourselves are Christian. The world in which we live in the year 2019 is amazingly diverse in so many ways, including in the realm of faith and religion. In light of the fact that faith and religion in this day and age can be the source of tremendous misunderstanding and even hostility, it is wise for us to try to gain some understanding of the books and writings which inspire believers in the world’s great religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Hence, our study of the Bible, the most important book for Christians. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what is the Bible, where did it come from, what makes up the Bible, and is the Bible a reliable book for the adherence of the Christian faith, as well as the Jewish faith. Toward that end, this paper will introduce the Bible by discussing what the Bible is, it’s origins, its makeup, how the various writings contained within the Bible came to be a part of the Bible, and finally, a discussion of the reliability of the Bible – a topic that is very relevant, since over 2 billion people claim it as their holy book, and since it is a very ancient book written over a period of approximately 1500 years, and has been a complete collection for nearly 2000 years.

WHAT IS THE BIBLE? The world in which we live in the early 21st century since the birth of Jesus Christ is a rapidly changing place in the last several generations, the world has in many ways grown smaller as through major advances in communication people in virtually any part of the world can be in contact with people in any other part of the world almost instantly. And today, in and year characterized by what is called the 24/7 news cycle, things that happen every where in the world can be known by nearly everyone else in the world almost instantly. This makes the world of today radically different than it was in the days of our grandparents, great-grandparents and those who came before them. As of this writing, the United States is 243 years old. And of the settlement of North America by non-native peoples, especially by Europeans, has been happening since the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

For most of that history of colonial America and the United States, the vast majority of immigrants came from northern and western Europe initially, then subsequently from southern and eastern Europe. In terms of our topic of the Bible, this is significant since the overwhelming majority of those immigrants came from a Christian background. During this timeframe, the faith and religions of Native Americans were not looked upon as being on the same level of Christianity, and as a result were not looked upon with the same level of interest, or respect of its beliefs, traditions and practices. For people of power and influence, and for the vast majority of the population of the United States, when one thought of faith and religion, one primarily thought of Christianity first, and Judaism secondarily. This thought was so pervasive that many would say that our country has been heavily influenced by and even governed by what was called the Judeo-Christian ethic, a way of looking at the world and also living which was drawn from the Bible – for Jews, coming from what is usually called the Old Testament, and for Christians coming from the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

So given the history and cultural background of the United States, it

makes sense to be familiar with the Bible as it has colored so much of our history, and has had such a great influence on our language and culture.

Now, to the Bible. What actually is it? When one looks at the Bible just as a book, one immediately observes that it is a thick book, it has many, many pages. The word Bible itself comes from a Greek word, biblia. That word then became Bible in English. That makes it sound as if the Bible is one book. In reality however, the Bible is not one book, but it is a library, or a collection of books contained under one cover.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLE

As has been stated already, the Bible is the holy book for both Jews and Christians. Jews and Christians each have their own structure for the Bible.

THE BIBLE IN JUDAISM

Jews do not generally use the word “Bible” for their holy book.

Rather, it is called the Tanakh. Tanakh is a word formed from two letters of the three major parts of the Jewish Scripture: Torah, Nebi’im and Khetubim. Torah means law or Word in the Hebrew language (the original language of the Jewish scriptures). Nebi’im means prophets, and Khetubim means writings.

The Tanakh is made up of 24 books: The Torah is made up of the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus,

Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The books of the Nebi’im consist of: Joshua, Judges, the books of

Samuel, the books of the Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the books of the Minor Prophets counted as one book.

The books of the Khetubim consist of: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of

Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah, and the two books of Chronicles counted as one. NOTE: all of these books are found in the Christian Bible, however, they are structured differently. In the Christian Bible the 24 books of the Tanakh are divided into 39, and are ordered as follows: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah,

Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. It is very important to remember that though the books are divided differently, and order differently, everything from the Jewish Scripture is found in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE The Christian Bible consists of all the books of the Tanakh, the Bible of Judaism, which Christians call the Old Testament. As mentioned above Jews number 24 books in the Tanakh. For Christians, the text contains all of the Tanakh, however it is divided differently into 39 books. Above and beyond the Tanakh, or the Old Testament, the Christian Bible contains a second major division: the New Testament. It consists of 27 books broken down into 5 categories as follows: the 4 Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; 1 book of History – the Book of Acts; 13 Letters, or Epistles of St. Paul – Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon. These are followed by 8 General Epistles – Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John and Jude. The final book of the New Testament, and of the entire Christian Bible comes under the category of Apocalyptic – the Book of Revelation.

THE “CANON” OF THE BIBLE

Now, onto the main topic of this paper: the Canon of the Bible. Concerning the word ‘canon’, F.F. Bruce writes, “When we speak of the canon of Scripture, the word ‘Canon’ has a simple meaning. It means a list of books contained in Scripture, the list of books recognized as worthy to be included in the sacred writings of a worshiping community. In a Christian

context, we might define the word as ‘the list of writings acknowledged by the Church as documents of divine revelation.’”1 The origin of the word Canon is Greek. The word was then picked up by the Latin language. F.F. Bruce states, “in the Greek it meant a rod, especially a straight rod used as a rule; from this usage comes the other meaning which the word commonly bears in English – ‘ rule’ or ‘ standard’. We speak, for example, of the ‘canons’ or rules of the church of England.”2 So primarily, that Canon of the Bible, or Scripture, simply means the list of the books which are contained in the Bible. But also behind that word Canon stands the inference that the books contained in the Bible are the clear and true message of God for humanity.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CANON OF THE BIBLE: THE OLD TESTAMENT

The books of the Old Testament were written over a period of about 1600 years, from approximately 2000 BC to about 400 BC. One of the earliest references to the Old Testament as a completed work was found in the first century A.D. in the writings of Josephus, a renowned Jewish historian. All the books of the Old Testament as we know it today had already been known for centuries by the time of Josephus. A major crisis in Israel in the year A.D. 70 precipitated a meeting of Jewish rabbis in Jamnia in Judea for the purpose of “… Reconstruction of Jewish religious life after the collapse of the Jewish Commonwealth…”3 in the year A.D. 66, there was a major rebellion of Jews in Israel against the occupying Roman army. This rebellion carried on until the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, including the destruction of the Temple. The destruction of the Temple was a huge spiritual and psychic blow to the Israelites, as the Temple was the center of spiritual life and Jewish identity not only for residents of Jerusalem, but for the entire nation. As a result, the rabbis met in Jamnia to thoroughly examine the key

1 F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, (Downers Grove, IL, 1988), p. 17. 2 F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, (Downers Grove, IL, 1988), p. 17.

3 F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, (Downers Grove, IL, 1988), p. 34

elements of Judaism, including the Jewish Scriptures. And it was at that time that the Canon of the Tanakh, or the Old Testament was etched in stone. No major changes were made. By this time, it had been determined that only books originally written in Hebrew could be considered a part of the Canon. This was an important distinction, as centuries earlier, when Israel was under Greek rule, a major translation of the Tanakh into the Greek language had been completed. That translation was called the Septuagint. The Septuagint included whole extra books, and parts of already existing books, which were only known in the Greek language.

So for Judaism, the canon of the Tanakh has been set for approximately 2000 years. However, among Christians, the Canon of the Old Testament was not totally settled until the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century A.D. Up until that time, Christians included all the books of the Jewish Tanakh (originally written in the Hebrew language) in what Christians call the Old Testament. Above and beyond that, Christians also included the extra books of the Septuagint (originally written in the Greek language) in the Old Testament. During the early years of the Protestant Reformation, Protestants tended to follow Judaism and only including books originally written in Hebrew in the Old Testament. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians continue to include the extra books originally written in Greek and their editions of the Bible. However, Roman Catholics make a distinction between those extra books and those found in the Jewish Tanakh and the extra books originally written in Greek. Roman Catholics call the Greek language books “deuterocanonical,” or, secondarily canonical. They are not considered as being on the same level of importance as the books originally written in Hebrew. But they are considered worthwhile for Roman Catholics to read, but they are not inspired on the same level as the originally Hebrew language books.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

The New Testament, the books found only in Christian Bibles, which cover the. From the birth of Jesus Christ do the early decades of the Christian church, were written in a much shorter period of time than were the books of the Old Testament. We have already seen that the books of the Old Testament were written over a span of time of approximately 1600 years. However the New Testament books were written over a span of time

of approximately 50 years. Jesus Christ died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven and about the year A.D. 30. The first books of the New Testament were written starting approximately A.D. 50. The final book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation, was written approximately A.D. 95 – 100. Since Christianity grew rapidly in its first hundred or so years of existence, and since it was widespread geographically from Western India all the way to Spain, it took some time for Christians to settle on the canon of the New Testament as we have it today. Very early on, the 4 Gospels, the Book of Acts, the 13 Epistles, or letters, of St. Paul, the 8 General Epistles and the Book of Revelation, were generally accepted by a wide majority of Christians as being books of Scripture. By about the year A.D. 170, the canon of the New Testament as we know it today was set. However, for a period of centuries, other works were considered at one time or another as also being worthy of inclusion in the canon. Ultimately, books of apostolic origin, either written directly by the apostles of Jesus, or by associates of those apostles, were accepted as being a part of the New Testament. Books which were written after the apostolic era were eventually excluded.

THE RELIABILITY OF THE BIBLE

As a work of literature, the Bible is amazingly reliable. There are thousands of manuscripts of parts of the New Testament in the original Greek language which date back to the earliest years of Christianity which serve as evidence that the text of the Bible which we have today can be trusted. There is far more evidence of the reliability of the Bible that there is for any other work of classical history. Ed Stetzer writes of this in an article in Christianity Today:

“First, we have over 5,700 Greek manuscripts representing all, or part, of the NT. By examining these manuscripts, over 99 percent of the original text can be reconstructed beyond reasonable doubt. We also discover that no Christian doctrine or ethic depends solely on one of the doubted texts. These facts do not prove that the NT is true, but it does mean we know what the original writers wrote. Without this assurance, the question of historical reliability is pointless.”4

4 Stetzer, Ed, A Closer Look: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament, in Christianity Today, February 15, 2012.

The Old Testament is also amazingly reliable. Despite its ancient origins, copies of Old Testament manuscripts from ancient times when compared with manuscripts from later periods are found to be nearly identical. This is due to the fact that Jews were very scrupulous about making sure that any copy of a scroll, or book of the Bible had to be exactly the same as the work which had been copied. This was proven to be true when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. Up until that time the oldest copies of Old Testament scrolls were approximately 900 years old. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls date back approximately 1000 years earlier. When the manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls were compared with copies of Old Testament books from 1000 years later, there were very, very few textual variants found.

So, all in all, the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments are very reliable

and trustworthy as works of literature. Thus, it is not surprising that the Bible has been, is now, and surely will continue to be a work that inspires Jews and Christians in their beliefs and worship of God, and in their daily walk of faith.