by W. Hartono
(last update: 25 February 1998)
Most of Christians take it for granted to have a copy of Bible and the question why the New Testament has twenty seven books, not more and not less, hardly comes to their mind. While they are unlikely to think that those books just simply dropped or were sent/e-mailed from heaven, they may not realize the long process which took place before those twenty seven books were finally selected. In the first place Jesus wrote no book and did not give any commandment to write down his teaching as testified by the four Gospels. Neither He nor His apostles gave us the list and approved any of the twenty seven New Testament books. They neither used nor introduced the terms Old and New Testaments. Those unbiblical terms were first used by Tertullian (c AD 170). In fact our Lord's and the later apostolic teachings were first transmitted and taught orally. Note that the first Christians did not consider this oral transmission as inferior. In Gal 4:20, Paul wrote that he wished to be with Galatians, so they could hear his tone. Because it was impossible then a letter from him would be sufficient. In other occasion, Paul judged that a written communication would be more effective than anything he could say (2 Cor 1:23-2:4). In short both oral and written forms were considered authoritative by the first Christians and are known to them as tradition (the Greek word translated as "tradition" comes from a verb which means "to deliver"). Note that when Paul and others mentioned "Scripture" what they meant exactly is the Old Testament books. For example, the scripture known to Timothy (2 Tim 3:15) since his childhood definitely refers to Old Testament books. The first Christians did consider Jesus's unwritten word as authoritative as Scripture. For example in 1 Tim 5:18, Paul quoted as scripture, both Deut 25:4 and Jesus word, which now recorded in Luke 10:7 (the Gospel of Luke was written after Paul's epistles). in 1 Thes 2;13, Paul also stated that his spoken word is the word of God. In the same way, early Christian writers like Clement of Rome (c. AD 96), Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (c. AD 110), Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (c AD 110-120) considered Jesus word as equal to those of Scriptures (Old Testament). The word Gospel might be first used by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in his letter to the Smyrnaeans (5:1 and 7:2). Papias, bishop of Hierapolis (c AD 125) was known to know at least two Gospels (Matthew and Mark). A generation after Papias, Justin Martyr mentioned about "memoirs of Peter" (possible Gospel of Mark) and "memoirs of the apostles", both of them he called as Gospels. His disciple, Tatian introduced Diatessaron, which are the four Gospels combined into one in a chronological order with Gospel of John as framework. Yet he quoted from Gospel according to the Hebrews when he referred to a light which shone around at Jesus baptism. This Diatessaron was in use in Syrian church until early fifth century when they gave up (reluctantly) for the four separate gospels. Among the four Gospels, that according to John took longer time to win acceptance, the earliest known quotation from it comes in the gnostic writer Basilides (c AD 130). On the other hand, among Paul's 13 epistles (Hebrews not included), the three pastoral letters (Titus and 1 & 2 Timothy) were accepted later. Compared to other books, the four Gospels and Paul's thirteen epistles were the first books of our present New Testament to be accepted. The first collection of New Testament books was made by Marcion (c 150 CE). His "canon" consisted of Gospel of Luke and 10 Paul's epistles (minus Titus, 1 & 2 Timothy) which he referred as Gospel and Apostle. However, he mutilated many of them to suit his belief. He declared that God of Old Testament was different with the One whom Jesus spoke. For this reason he rejected all Old Testament books. He broke away from Rome and established his own church. His counterpart, Valentinus also broke away from Rome and founded a gnostic school. He wrote The Gospel of Truth, which is not a rival gospel but a mediation on the true gospel of Christ. It alludes to Gospels according to Matthew and Luke (and possibly Acts), Gospel and first epistle of John, 10 Paul's epistles (minus the three Pastorals), Hebrews and Revelation. Both Marcion and Valentinus prompted the Church to define what belonged to written apostolic teaching, thus starting the collection of New Testament books. The second known collection of New Testament books is the 2nd century Muratorian canon (named after L.A. Muratori who published the list, copied from 7th century codex). The manuscript is mutilated in the beginning, but we can conclude that it has four Gospels, Acts, 13 Paul's epistles, Jude, 2 of John's letters, Apocalypse of John (Revelation) and of Peter, and Wisdom of Solomon. Apocalypse of Peter now does not belong to our New Testament, while Wisdom of Solomon is now part of (Catholic) Old Testament (one of the Deuterocanonical books). The compiler mentioned about Shepherd of Hermas which can be read but not to be given to people. He also wrote about Paul epistle to Laodicean (Col 4:16) and to Alexandrines which he claimed to be forged. Interestingly, Iranaeus , bishop of Lyon (c. AD 170) quoted Shepherd of Hermas as scripture. In his two literary works (Against Heresies and Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching), Iranaeus quoted from 1 and 2 John, 1 Peter and most likely knew all Paul's epistles (except Philemon), and maybe James and Hebrews and Revelation. Close to the end of 2nd century, Tertullian of Carthage in his work mentioned the four Gospels, Acts, 13 Paul's epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, Jude and Revelation. He mentioned Hebrews as the work of Barnabas and in his judgment was worthy to be included in the canon. Origen (AD 185 - 254) distinguished between the undisputed and the disputed books of New Testament. The former consisted of the four gospels, Acts, Pauline epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation. The latter consisted of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude, Didache and he referred Epistle of Barnabas as Catholic epistle (a term now applied to all non Pauline seven epistles). He was the first known Christian writer to mention 2 Peter. He also considered Shepherd of Hermas as scripture and mentioned about Gospel according to Hebrews and Acts of Paul and some other books. Cyprian in the third century listed four Gospels, Acts, 9 Paul's epistles (minus Philemon), 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation. He also cited Shepherd of Hermas as scripture and recognized Didache as apostolic quotations. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine (AD 314 - 339) divided New Testament books into three categories: universally acknowledged, disputed and spurious. The first consisted of the four gospels, Acts, Pauline 14 epistles (including Hebrews), 1 John, 1 Peter and Revelation. The second category included James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John; while books like Acts of Paul, Shepherd of Hermas, Apocalypse of Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, Didache, but also Revelation belonged to the third category. Note that Revelation was listed both as the first and the third category. It shows the two different opinions of the canonicity of Revelation, which was especially true among the eastern churches. He also mentioned Gospel of Peter, which was read and appreciated by Christians in the second century and quoted by Justin Martyr. Eusebius also mentioned (as heretical) books like Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias and groups of books of Acts bearing names of the apostles (Paul, Peter, Andrew, John and Thomas). All those books which do not belong to our present New Testament canon are now known as New Testament apocrypha. In AD 367, Athanasius , bishop of Alexandria gave the list of 27 New Testament books, for the first time without making any distinction of them and which now becomes our New Testament. Around the same time, Council of Laodicea (c AD 363) gave the list of 26 New Testament books (Revelation was not included). The same list of 26 books was given by Cyril of Jerusalem and by Gregory of Nazianzen . At the same time, Amphilochius of Iconium gave the 27 books but mentioned that some of them (Hebrews, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation) as spurious. John of Chrysostom , bishop of Constantinopel from AD 397 to 407 gave list which excluded 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation. He appeared to be the first who used the phrase "the books" (which later became "the Bible") to refer to both Old and New Testaments. The Syriac church's earliest canon of the New Testament consisted of either 4 gospels or Diatessaron, Acts and 14 Paul's epistles. From early fifth century it also included James, 1 Peter and 1 John. Not until AD 508, the Monophysite branch of Syriac church finally included the other five books while the other branch, Nestorian accepts only 22 books to this day. At the order of Pope Damasus I , Jerome translated the 27 books into Latin (Vulgate). Augustine in the fifth century listed the 27 books in his work, "On Christian Learning". Those 27 books were later declared at the Council of Hippo in AD 393 and at Third Council of Carthage in AD 397. The same councils also declared the list of Old Testament books which now become Catholic Old Testament. The sixth Council of Carthage in AD 419 repromulgated the (same) canon of Bible. It can be said that the 27 books of New Testament (together with Catholic Old Testament books) were determined in the fourth century. Among the 27 books, seven (James, Jude, Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John and Revelation) books entered the list after some disputes. They are more or less the same as deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Old Testament (which are dropped from most of Protestant Old Testament). The above councils also show the authority of the Church to define which books belong to Old and New Testaments. It is true that those councils were not ecumenical councils , but just African synods hence they did not speak for the whole church. This fact was shown by the existence of different list of books in some of Bible manuscripts made in and after 4th century. The reason why no ecumenical council decided the canon before 4th century is because the issue of canon of Bible is not an issue which divided Christianity (compare to Arianism which prompted ecumenical Council of Niceae in AD 325). There are a number of surviving manuscripts (in Codex form) of New Testament books. The New Testament part of Codex Sinaiticus (4th Century) has all 27 books of our present New Testament, but also includes Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas. That of Codex Vaticanus (4th century) was torn at the end, so does not reveal the whole list; the existing part consists of 21 books and part of Hebrews of our present New Testament. On the other hand the New Testament part of Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) has the 27 books plus 1 and 2 Clement. Codex Claromontanus (6th century) does not have Phillipian, 1 and 2 Thessalonian and Hebrews but includes Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas, Acts of Paul and Revelation of Peter. Another 4th century list, now known as Cheltenham list has only 4 gospels, 13 Pauline epistles, Acts, Revelation, 1 John and 1 Peter. The different status of some New Testament books resurfaced again during Reformation in sixteenth century. Martin Luther, although included James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation in his list of New Testament books, considered them to have inferior status. He particularly disliked James which he labeled (in his 1522 German translation of New Testament) as "Epistle of Straw". In addition, he added the word "only" in Rom 3:28 to support his doctrine of "sola fide" or "salvation by faith alone". As a response to Reformation, Catholic Church reaffirmed the canonicity of 27 books of the New Testament (and 46 books of the Old Testament) at the ecumenical Council of Trent. For Catholics, Council of Trent gave the final list of books of the Bible; no one, not even Pope and other ecumenical councils can add or drop any book into or from the Bible. Looking back at the long process (around three hundred years after our Lord's ascension) which took place to define what belongs to our New Testament, one may ask: what is the criteria of canonicity? Several criteria have been proposed, among them: apostolic authority (was it written by one of the apostles?), Antiquity (was it written in the first century?), orthodoxy (does it teach apostolic faith?), inspiration (did the writer claim inspiration?). Yet none of the above criteria can judge absolutely the canonicity of particular book. Unless the original manuscript of the book can be found (and be verified) no one can absolutely prove that it was written by the Paul or others. Some books like Acts and the third gospel are anonymous. By tradition most of us believed that they were written by Luke, a Syrian from Antioch mentioned in Col 4:14. Note that he is not one of the apostle and was not first generation of Christian. He composed the third Gospel from tradition he received from others (Luke 1:2). Even those bearing the name of the writer like 2 Peter and Revelation, may not be written by the actual person. 2 Peter may be written in the second century and not by Peter. As for orthodoxy, Jude 9 and 14 quote from uncanonical Old Testament books (Ascension of Moses and Enoch). The concept that evil spirits were allowed by God to afflict humans until the time of final judgment (Matthew 8:29) is borrowed from the uncanonical books of Enoch and Jubilee. Do all 27 books claim inspiration? In 1 Cor 14:37 Paul wrote that his written words are commandment of the Lord. Revelation claims to be a witness of the word of God and it has a number of prophecies (Rev 1:2-3). However, it is one of the disputed books which entered the canon at later stage. On the other hand, Philemon which does not claim inspiration and contains no prophecy was accepted earlier. Uncanonical book, 1 Clement claims inspiration (1 Clem 63:2) and was believed to be written by Clement , bishop of Rome in the first century and together with 2 Clement were included in 5th century Codex Alexandrinus. What happens if they discover another authentic epistle written by Paul or other apostles (refer to 1 Cor 5:9 and Col 4:16 for such possibility)? Will it be added to the Canon of the New Testament if it satisfies all the above criteria? To the Catholics, the answer is "no" because the canon of the New Testament was already fixed at the council of Trent. Thus by itself, none of the New Testament books cannot prove its canonicity and even if we rely on the testimony of the Christians in the first and second century, they too may have different opinion on particular book. As mentioned earlier, some (7 books) were accepted as canonical after some dispute. Other problems like deciding whether the two endings (longer and shorter) of Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:9-20), Luke 22:43-44 and John 7:53-8:11 (the case of adulterous woman) belong to the Scripture or not. Those verses were absent from the earliest manuscripts (i.e. not part of the original text). Thus we need the other and the final criteria, the authority of the Church who has the final say regarding which book belongs to our Old and New Testaments. Catholics have no problem to accept this criteria, which is a historical fact and is even supported by a testimony of Paul himself, recorded in 1 Tim 3:15 which says: the Church is the foundation and pillar of truth. Reference
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