Full-Proof Ministries

Were the Books that we find in our Bibles today hand-picked to fit a certain mold or was the process more objective than that? This post is an attempt to answer a particular objection I was confronted with to the truth-claims of Christianity by a friend and has to deal with what is called the Canon of Scripture.  (Canon is just a fancy Greek word that meant “measuring rod” and by which we understand the canon to be that “rule of faith” that recognized – not selected – certain books as authoritative and inspired of God.) 

The early church was never popular.  Besides the fact that Jesus was doing miracles left and right (and then the Apostles followed suit with miracles), by and large the crowds were unimpressed spiritually.  They liked magic tricks, but that was about where it left off.  Being unpopular from the get-go was bad enough, but “The Way” or Christianity, was proving to be quite the competitor to the Judaism of the Jews or the pantheism of the Romans.  Before long, both camps were persecuting this up-start religion. 

After what is known as the Edict of Diocletian, wherein the sacred Scriptures were to be burned by law, the Christians were forced to determine not which books would make for the best story, but which books they were willing to die for….and die they did.  This edict, coupled with the fact that a heretic by the name of Marcion had developed his own canon of sorts (or list of books that he held to be the Bible), the church at large needed to respond with an authoritative list of books of their own.  The process was not at all hodge-podge, pick and choose as some have supposed, but they had several criteria they used to discover (not determine) which books belonged.  I’ll quickly define just a couple of the most important ones here:

1. Apostolicity – was the book either written by an apostle, an associate of an apostle, or was approved by an apostle (by quoting it, etc.)
2. Catholicity – not whether or not the book was Roman Catholic, but universal in its acceptance.  Catholic actually literally means universal.

There are certainly other criteria that were used (the list ranges in number of criteria listed, but not in substance). 

Here are some quick videos (just a couple minutes a piece that would be worth looking at:
Lee Strobel – Former atheist discusses the reliability of the Bible
Dr. Wallace answers your question more specifically
Dr. Bock speaks to those “gospels” that never made it into the Bible

This was not meant to be an exhaustive answer to your question regarding the compiling of the Sacred Scriptures, but it does present the other side of the story.  I hope you’ll read what I wrote and take a moment to watch the videos (they’re very short) before you make a final decision.  Truth, at the end of the day, is what matters. 

I hope this post finds you doing well and pursuing Truth.  After all, the truth is what sets you free. – John 8:32

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Jeff Whittum is the Founder and Director of Full-Proof Ministries. Challenged by a close friend, Jeff set out to discover the intellectual basis for his faith. This led him to a deeper and more substantiated faith in Christ, ultimately founding Full-Proof to reach others who are searching.

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