What Is the Canon of Scripture?

The word Bible comes from the Greek word biblos, which means “book.” However, although the Bible is bound up in one volume, it is not a single book; rather, it is a collection of sixty-six individual books—a library of books. Since there are so many books that together make up the sacred Scriptures, how do we know that the right books have been included in this collection or library of books? That question falls under the issue of canonicity.

We get the word canon from another Greek word, kanōn, which means “measuring rod” or “norm.” To call the Bible “the canon of Scripture” is to say that its sixty-six books together function as the supreme measuring rod or authority for the church. The Bible often has been described as norma normans et sine normativa. A form of the word norm appears three times in that expression. Norma normans means “the norm of norms,” and sine normative means “without norm.” The Bible is the norm or the standard of all standards, and it is judged by no other standard.

Extent of the Canon

There are many misconceptions about the canon. Critics argue that, given the large number of books—more than two thousand, they claim—that could have been included in the Bible, it seems probable that some books should have been included but were not, while other books that were not qualified for inclusion made their way in. However, the overwhelming majority of the books considered for inclusion in the canon were quickly and easily dismissed by the early church because they were so obviously fraudulent.

In the second century, Gnostic heretics, claiming Apostolic authority, wrote their own books and disseminated them widely. However, these books were never seriously considered for inclusion in the canon, which is why it is misleading to say that there were more than two thousand potential candidates. If we consider the historical selection process undertaken by the church, a process governed by great caution and careful investigation, we see that only three of the excluded documents were given serious consideration for inclusion in the New Testament: the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the First Letter of Clement of Rome. These documents originate from the late first or early second century, and it becomes clear if one reads them that the writers were conscious that their work was sub-Apostolic and post-Apostolic. They thus submitted to the authority of the Apostles and of their writings.

The excluded documents are important and useful for the church, and they have been so throughout church history, but there was never a struggle over whether to include them in the canon. Most of the controversy over the canon in the earlier centuries concerned not what was excluded but what was actually included. Debate went on for some time about whether to include Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.

The Canon Established

Others take exception to the authority of the canon because it was not established until the fourth century, long after the life and death of Christ. Establishing the canon was a process that took place over a period of time; however, that does not mean the church was without a New Testament until the end of the fourth century. From the very beginning of the church, the basic books of the New Testament, those that we read and observe today, were in use, and they functioned as a canon because of their Apostolic authority.
The issue that provoked the establishment of the canon was the appearance of a heretic named Marcion, who issued his own canon. Under the influence of Gnosticism, Marcion believed that the God portrayed in the Old Testament is not the ultimate God of the universe but rather a lesser deity called a “demiurge” who has a nasty disposition, and that Christ came to reveal the true God and to deliver us from this mean-spirited deity. As a result, Marcion expurgated everything in the New Testament that could link Christ in a positive way to Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. The gospel of Matthew and much material from the other gospels were cut, as was any reference that Christ made to God as His Father. Marcion also eliminated some of Paul’s writings. He ended up producing a small, abridged, and edited version of the New Testament. This heresy spurred the church to give an authoritative, formal list of actual biblical books.

The Marks of Canonicity

In order to determine canonical authenticity, the church applied a threefold test. Some are troubled by the fact that there was a selection process, but the thoroughness of the process should reassure us.

The first mark or test used to verify a book’s authority was its Apostolic origin, a criterion that had two dimensions. To be of Apostolic origin, a document had to have been written either by an Apostle or under the direct and immediate sanction of an Apostle. The book of Romans, for example, was not in question because everyone acknowledged that it had been written by the Apostle Paul and thus bore Apostolic authority. Likewise, neither the gospel of Matthew nor the gospel of John was questioned because they were written by Apostles of Jesus. The gospel of Luke was not questioned because Luke was an associate of Paul and traveled with him on his missionary journeys. Likewise, Mark was seen as the spokesman for the Apostle Peter, so the authority of Peter stood behind the gospel of Mark. From the very beginning, there was no doubt about the Apostolic authority and biblical canonicity of the four Gospels or of the basic corpus of Paul’s writings.

The second mark for acceptance into the canon was reception by the primitive church. The epistle to the Ephesians is an example that fits this criterion. The assumption is that Paul intended this letter for an audience broader than just the church at Ephesus. It was written as a circular letter, one designed to be disseminated to all the churches in the region around Ephesus. That was true not only of the Ephesian epistle but also of the other epistles of Paul. The Gospels were widely circulated among first-century congregations as well. As a matter of historical reconnaissance, the church, when considering what to include in the canon, took into account how a particular document had been received and quoted as authoritative from early on. In the First Letter of Clement, which was not recognized as canonical, Clement cites Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, showing that 1 Corinthians had been received by the early Christian community as authoritative. In the Bible itself, the Apostle Peter makes mention of Paul’s letters as being included among the category of Scripture (2 Peter 3:16).

The third mark of canonicity was the cause of most of the controversy. The books deemed to be Apostolic or sanctioned by an Apostle, and also received by the early church, made up the basic core of the New Testament and were accepted into the canon without any real controversy, but there was a second level of books about which there was some debate. One of the issues concerned the compatibility of the doctrine and teaching of these books with the core books. This is the issue that provoked some of the questions about the book of Hebrews. A portion of this epistle, Hebrews 6, has often been interpreted as indicating that those redeemed by Christ can lose their salvation, a teaching out of sync with the rest of biblical teaching on that subject. However, that chapter may be interpreted in such a way that it is not out of sync with the rest of the Scripture. What finally swung the debate regarding Hebrews was the argument that Paul was its author. The church in the early centuries believed that Paul was the author of Hebrews, and that landed the epistle in the canon. Ironically, there are few scholars today who believe that Paul wrote it, but there are even fewer who would deny that it belongs in the canon.

The Scope of the Canon

A dispute arose in the sixteenth century between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants over the scope and extent of the Old Testament Scriptures, specifically over the Apocrypha, a group of books produced during the intertestamental period. The Roman Catholic Church embraced the Apocrypha; the Reformation churches, for the most part, did not. The dispute centered on what the first-century church and Jesus Himself had accepted as canonical. All the evidence from Palestine indicates that the Jewish Palestinian canon did not include the Apocrypha, whereas many in Alexandria, the cultural center for Hellenistic Jews, did include it. However, more recent scholarship suggests that even the Alexandrian canon recognized the Apocrypha only at a secondary level, not at the full level of biblical authority. So the question remains as to who was right, the Roman Catholic Church or the Protestants? In other words, by what authority do we determine what is canonical?

According to the Protestants, each book found in the Bible is an infallible book, but the process undertaken by the church as to which books to include was not infallible. We believe that the church was providentially guided by the mercy of God in the process of determining the canon and thereby made the right decisions, so that every book that should be in the Bible is in the Bible. However, we do not believe that the church was inherently infallible, then or now. By contrast, the Roman Catholic formula says that we have the correct books because the church is infallible and anything the church decides is an infallible decision. In the Roman Catholic understanding, the formation of the canon rests on the authority of the church, whereas in the Protestant understanding, it rests upon the providence of God.

I would commend to you further study of the development of the canon. Let me emphasize in conclusion that even though there was a historical sifting process, I believe that God led the church to her final conclusion, and that we have no reason to be anything but fully assured that the right books were included in the canon of sacred Scripture.