Canon is a term for the collection of books/writings that are accepted as authoritative. Considering that the 66 books of our biblical canon are viewed as the literal words of God—as no other writings in the world are—asking how our biblical canon was decided is a perfectly reasonable question. Unfortunately, the answer to that question isn’t as straightforward as we might like. The books of Bible we now have weren’t written and canonized all at once. Instead, the canon developed slowly over time.
We can’t say for certain when the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, was first established as the 39 books we know today. They first existed as oral traditions—stories told and passed down by God’s people from generation to generation. Gradually, they were written down, and copies were carefully made when the old ones wore out. We no longer have any of the original manuscripts, but some very old copies of both testaments have been preserved and since discovered, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. What books were accepted officially as part of Jewish Scripture was likely being decided from a few centuries before the time of Christ up until the first century A.D. As a result of this work done by Jewish teachers, we now have 39 books of the Old Testament, which are the same as the modern Hebrew Bible (although they are organized differently).
Like with the Old Testament Scriptures, the stories about Christ that form the basis for the New Testament were likely passed around first by word of mouth. Then, as Luke 1:1 states, “many [undertook] to draw up an account” of what had happened. Four of these accounts were considered authoritative Scripture and are now included in our 27 canonical New Testament books. Most of the other books were written originally as letters to specific churches. Although these weren’t the only letters, teachings, and writings in circulation, early church leaders and various councils eventually agreed on these 27 books as holy and on the same level as the rest of Jewish Scripture in a process that would take somewhere around 300 years. In A.D. 367, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote the first known list containing the 27 authoritative Christian writings—the same ones we recognize today. Some of the questions early Christians and church leaders likely asked when examining the New Testament biblical canon may have included these:
- Does the work have an authoritative source (was it written by someone who should know what they’re talking about)?
- Is it genuine (was it written by the person it claimed to be written by and contain reliable information)?
- Does the work agree with the rest of Scripture on important matters?
- Did the majority of the early church accept these writings as Scripture?
There have been, continue to be, disagreements between different groups over what should be included or excluded as holy Scripture. Some groups accept fewer than 66 books. For example, Samaritans accept only the five books of Moses (the Torah) as authoritative. So Scripture for them includes only Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Others include more than 66 books, such as the Roman Catholics, whose Bible also contains seven books Protestants call the apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch.
Overall, it was a long process that led to the development of the canon we have today, but accepting those 66 books as the inspired Word of God comes down to a measure of trust. God wanted us to know about Him through the Scriptures, and we can be sure He didn’t leave that process to chance. We can have faith that He has preserved the writings He wanted us to have and guided the process of selecting the canon so that we can trust these 66 books as His Word.
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