Who decided what books are in the Bible?
Many have heard the term “Canonicity” used with this topic—what does it mean?
Did the Church make the decision of what’s in the Bible? How did they or whoever was responsible, decide?
These are incredibly important questions for us to answer because if the books that make up our Bibles, the “canon” of Scripture are merely the result of human effort and decision, it doesn’t matter if we read them or what we do with them.
However, if they are from God Himself, given to us through human authors, they are authoritative for our beliefs and how we should live.
The process of canonicity is how the church decided these important issues and that’s what our lesson talks about. Below are links to the podcast, video, and notes, plus a PDF download of the Easter Letter of Athanasius that first listed the 27 books of the New Testament and is also an excellent summary of some of the important points of canonicity.
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Links to the podcast, video, PDF of the Easter Letter of Athanasius, and the NOTES/Transcript of the class follow—
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A primary criticism of the New Testament is that critics say that Christians intentionally left out and/or suppressed certain writings, primarily what we call the Gnostic Gospels and that they should be part of our New Testament and aren’t.
Many people assume the New Testament was written hundreds of years after the life of Christ. If that was true, how then do we know that what was talked about in the Bible, his miracles and especially his resurrection from the dead, how do we know those aren’t real, but myths and legends that developed many years after He lived?
