Compiling of the New Testament

[Jon]

How and when were the books of the New Testament decided upon?

I have my opinions and sources of information on the subject, but I'm curious how others respond before I put in my 2 cents...

Jon

[Paidion]

The best source I have ever encountered is:

http://www.bible-researcher.com/

[jriccitelli]

OK here’s my two cents. If Saint Peter himself put it together good, then it’s Gods Word and on that we agree. But wait, no one can know that, since no one can determine what Gods Word is ‘unless he sits in Peters Chair’. But if only the person sitting in the chair can determine Gods Word then how can we even determine if the person sitting in the chair knows Gods Word since we ourselves would need ‘his anointing’ to discern what he (the man in the chair) is saying. ‘If the person in the Chair has determined his own authority, for who else could, are 'we' then ‘interpreting’ that persons word that 'they have the only authority' , when 'we' ourselves do not have the authority to interpret. And since none, but I suppose The See Himself (Whoever is sitting in the apostles Chair) can discern Gods Word authoritatively, then why are we discussing it? Since none of us are the ‘See’ then none of us can be sure we can discern anything that the See has said. Since only the See can interpret, then would not we also need the ‘special anointing of the See’ to know what the See has said. And since nobody can discern what ‘others are interpreting’ the Holy See to say, I do not see why anyone would bother discussing what the Bible says.
After all If you must have a ‘special’ anointing of the Spirit to interpret scripture then it becomes dependent on mans spirit to interpret the writings of the church fathers, since the church fathers are not scripture, then we are using non scripture to determine Gods scripture.
It is amazing that catholic apologists argue that the ‘Catholic Church’ put together the Canon, therefore only the ‘Catholic Church’ has the truth, ability to interpret etc. but who could know this statement is true without sitting in the seat themselves?

[jriccitelli]

So then; Going over every church father and every church council known to Man, never seems to be the answer to 'who can interpret Gods Word'. Is it only the Holy See or the reader? In the Bible it seems Gods Word had authority not the people, the Holy Spirit was given to all who ‘believed’ His ‘Word’ "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)
I think God also said “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.34 They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, (Jeremiah 31:33-34)
Time to go visit the Church now, hope to see you there.

[Apollos]

How and when were the books of the New Testament decided upon?

I have my opinions and sources of information on the subject, but I'm curious how others respond before I put in my 2 cents...

Jon

My view - the apostles delivered the canonical and received books to the church.

[Paidion]

...the Church of Rome agreeing on the status of the apocrypha only at the Reformation (for previous to this, from Jerome to Cardinal Cajetan, Roman Catholic church leaders doubted their canonical status)

This seems to be a bit of a sweeping generalization.

Athanasius (287-376) who lived even before Jerome (347-420) is considered to be the individual who pretty well established the canon. He called his list of books "wells of salvation" and applied the words of Revelation to his list (rather than to Revelation itself as was the intent of the author):

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.(Revelation 22:18,19) ESV

If any church read writings which were not in Athanasius's list, they were to cease doing so. If any writings in his list were not being used, the churches were to add them and use them.

Athanasius's list of New Testament writings is identical to those in our New Testament today. So is his list of Old Testament writings — with one exception. He included Baruch (an apocryphal book).

My question is this. Who established the first canon which excluded Baruch? In other words, who decided that Athanasius was wrong, and eliminated that book from the canon? I have been unable to find the answer to that question.

[Paidion]

In the days of the apostles, there was no such thing as a "canon of scripture", at least for the New Testament. It wasn't until the gnostic Marcion (85-160) began teaching that some of the writings being read in the church were influenced by the Jews, and compiled his own "canon", that the regular church saw the need to form a canon themselves to counteract this list which excluded important apostolic writings. Marcion was a dualist, in that he thought the harsh, punishing god of the Old Testament was the Israelites' tribal god, Yahweh, who thought He was the Supreme God but was mistaken. The Supreme God was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was loving and giving, and the Creator of all spirits, whereas Yahweh was the creator of all material things. The people of the wider church were "animal people", whereas they, the gnostics, were spiritual people. They were fond of quoting Paul's words, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." (I Corinthians 15:50).

The only books in our New Testament which Marcion accepted were the following:
Luke, Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, and Philemon.

The gnostics added a lot of other books which they had composed, and falsely claimed were apostolic, such as:
The Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Matthias, the Acts of Andrew, the Acts of John, the Gospel of Truth, the Infancy of Jesus Christ

One of the gnostic writings have Jesus giving great orations to people when he was just an infant. In another account, the child Jesus made birds from clay, and caused them to live and to fly away, just for his own amusement and that of his companions.

[Apollos]

If any church read writings which were not in Athanasius's list, they were to cease doing so. If any writings in his list were not being used, the churches were to add them and use them.

Athanasius had no say outside of his diocese, and did not apply outside of it. There were later councils in various places to settle the matter. The RC church, as I pointed out (and this can be read about, if I'm not mistaken, in William Webster's book The Church of Rome at the Bar of History), did not settle the matter until the time of the Reformation.

Athanasius's list of New Testament writings is identical to those in our New Testament today. So is his list of Old Testament writings — with one exception. He included Baruch (an apocryphal book).

He rejected Esther from the OT canon as well.

My question is this. Who established the first canon which excluded Baruch? In other words, who decided that Athanasius was wrong, and eliminated that book from the canon? I have been unable to find the answer to that question.

It's a wrong question. Athanasius' list was never the default view from which others strayed by rejecting Baruch and accepting Esther. His was one list among many similar yet distinct lists.

This might be useful, though it deals only with the NT:
http://www.ntcanon.org/lists.shtml

[Jon]

Thanks, everyone, for your responses so far.

I found the site "http://www.bible-researcher.com/" very interesting and encourage others to go take a look. I say this as a Catholic even though the organizer of the website is Baptist. He does seem to do a wonderful job of being objective in his description of Church History. I will have to thank him for that.

I'm going to try and leave the apocrypha out of this for now and focus on NT.

John, it sounds like you are arguing and answering a question I didn't quite ask. I did not intend to imply any trick questions based on the fact I announced that I am Catholic. I am not waiting for you to answer so I can say "of course only the See knows Jesus well enough to understand scripture". I am trying to understand, from a non-Catholic perspective, how someone comes to the conclusion that the existing books of the Bible are the correct list of books.

The Catholic answer is easy - Council of Carthage in 397. But why would a non-Catholic accept this list? How can you be sure that the "so-called" heretics of Marcion and the Gnostics were incorrect? Who can pass judgement, as an individual or a group, to decide who is the heretic and who has the Truth?

The site "http://www.bible-researcher.com/" had an interesting argument in one essay - that the Holy Spirit inspired which writings were going to be true, and the Catholic Church, a few centuries later (397) merely confirmed and stated the obvious. Still, for a final word on the subject, does it not, at the very least, require a gathering of men who would say, once and for all "this is the Truth and that is not"? Without this clear direction, would we not have had many different versions of the Bible where each individual decides what books to accept and which not to? How does a non-Catholic perspective support a formal gathering of men to decree the books of the New Testament?

Regards,
Jon

[steve7150]

The Catholic answer is easy - Council of Carthage in 397. But why would a non-Catholic accept this list? How can you be sure that the "so-called" heretics of Marcion and the Gnostics were incorrect? Who can pass judgement, as an individual or a group, to decide who is the heretic and who has the Truth?



I don't know the history of this but a couple of things come to mind. The NT writers and Jesus quoted or alluded to the OT hundreds of times. I think Revelation references the OT about 278 times alone, so Marcion was rightly dismissed and the gnostic writings came much later the the NT canon and were clearly not written by the authors claimed.
The NT canon letters were written by Apostles or people approved by the Apostles. For example Luke was a traveling companion of Paul, Mark's gospel was probably written with Peter and written very early. Eventually these facts came to be generally accepted except for Revelation, 2nd Peter and Jude which were later accepted.