The Bible: How Did We Get What We Have?

I was in college when I first encountered it, and the intensity of the fight has gone much further every year since then, but Scripture has become the target of much debate over the past few years. The World has, for much time now, cast much ire toward the Scriptures. And is it any wonder? Everything we profess about Christ comes from the Scriptures.

We believe that human beings rebelled against their loving Creator and earned for ourselves the justice of God. We believe that God sent His Son, born of a virgin, who lived a perfect life and died on a cross. He earned for us a righteousness not of our own and also paid the full punishment for our sin. Jesus then rose from the dead three days later and after that He ascended to the right hand of God. We also believe that if we turn from ruling our lives and trust in Christ then we will be saved from God’s wrath…His justice. This is the very foundation of the Christian’s life. It is also highly offensive to those who do not believe what we believe for a few reasons.

1. The claim that Scripture makes is that people are inherently sinful.
2. The claim that Scripture makes is that no one measures up to God’s standard of righteousness.
3. The claim that Scripture makes is that everyone has a relationship with God, but no one starts out with a good relationship with God. We all begin as rebels against our Righteous and Holy Creator.
4. The claim that Scripture makes is that we do not have the ability to put ourselves into a right relationship with God.
5. The claim that Scripture makes is that we need a Savior.

I hope that you can see why these things would be so very offensive. This is a definite blow to the people’s pride and many just do not want for this to be true. So, where does the attack take place? It takes place upon Scripture itself.

What We Believe About Scripture

We believe that all of Scripture is “inspired” or “breathed out” by God. We mean by that is that it is the product of God. That is not that the Scriptures fell down from the Heavens, but rather that He so oversaw the entire process that what we have is the product of God.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” – II Timothy 3:16-17 ESV

The Scriptures are the product of God. The process that took place is quite interesting. God oversaw the writing of the Scripture sin a way that allowed the writers to be themselves, yet at the same time write what God wanted them to write.

“knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” – II Peter 1:20-21 ESV

The word usage here is quite intriguing, but very telling. Paul says that the writers “were carried along by the Holy Spirit”. The Greek word for “carried along” was the same word used to describe the sails of a boat being filled up with air and pushing a boat. That is a helpful way to describe inspiration. It might help to think of it another way.

Paul had real problems to deal with. He wrote to the church at Corinth that had real problems. He wrote to the church at Galatia very angrily because of how offensive their sin was. It is the same with the other authors and letters of the New Testament. They were writing about real things that were going on. Now, God so oversaw the writing of these letters that the end result was His Word which is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for training in righteousness”. That, in my opinion, is mind boggling and amazing.

God’s Word Preserved

Last week we saw something else that was extraordinary. God also oversaw the preservation of His Word. We can be sure that what was written down long ago is the same as what we have today. The sheer amount of copies and early dates of the manuscripts we have are astounding and, as we saw in the link above, we can have an incredible amount of confidence that the words of Scripture that we have today are the words that were written down long ago. This is amazing, but it does lead us to a very pertinent question. How do we know that he books in our Bible are the ones that are supposed to?

We are asking a question here that is of great importance? What books of the Bible do Christians recognize as being inspired and authoritative? Why were some books left out while others were not?

Old Testament Books

The Bible that you are using today has 39 books in the Old Testament. If you were to go and grab a Hebrew Bible, which is the Old Testament it would have 36 books. And, to make things a bit more confusing, the Bible that Jesus used had either 22 or 24. That’s okay. I’m going to tell you something that will make you feel better about things. There are no additions or subtractions, just differences in groupings. The books of the minor prophets were combined together. That’s 12 books combined into 1. Then, at times other books were combined together. It just means that we have the same Old Testament books that Jesus used and that Hebrew people today use.

Another thing that makes matters confusing is that we put our Books of the Bible in different orders.

I say all of this simply to say that we have the same Old Testament that Jesus used and that Hebrew people use today.

The importance of knowing this may be alluding you at this point. But here’s why you should know it. First, people quote Scripture oddly at times. It was not odd for them but it definitely is to us. You will sometimes hear it claimed that Scripture has mistakes because a quotation is not found where the person said it was. At times they would say something like “as it was written in Isaiah” and you just can’t find the passage in Isaiah that is being alluded to, but it’s found in another Book from one of the Prophets. This is because they referenced Isaiah to mean “the Prophets”. It was the first and largest book of the Prophets and so it was oftentimes used as a name for all of them. Second, I don’t want you to glance through some Hebrew Old Testament some day and get confused. Nor do I want you to hear someone argue about the books being different and you not knowing why they are ordered differently and yet the same. And thirdly, it will help you understand some passages of Scripture better. Jesus at times spoke of the first book and the last book of the Old Testament. Any time that He did so it is helpful to understand that He was referencing the Hebrew order of the Books of the Bible…not the modern English. And fourthly, Jesus spoke at times of the “Law and the Prophets”. It would be difficult to understand what He meant by this unless we knew the Hebrew order of the Scriptures. But we know that this is a shorthand way of saying “all of the Old Testament”.

Argument For The Hebrew Old Testament

There are numerous writings from the Old Testament that claim that it is divine in origin. I will simply list these so that you can look them up at your own leisure. What we see in these passages is that God commanded the writing of His Word and what we have today is a result of that endeavor.

• Deuteronomy 31:24-26
• Deuteronomy 18:15-22
• Isaiah 30:8
• Daniel 9:2

Jesus had an amazing view of the Old Testament. He did not come to abolish it. It will not be removed. And, He gives us a clue within this great declaration that helps us to understand that He is discussing the entirety of the Hebrew Old Testament.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 5:17-19 ESV

Saying, “Law of Prophets” is a shorthand way of saying all of the Hebrew Scriptures. He is using the breakdown of Scripture mentioned above to say that the Bible that they recognized will be completely fulfilled.

What About The Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Books?

The Roman Catholic Church has a few more books in their Old Testament than we do, than Jesus did, and than modern Hebrew people do. This could take up a whole other session, but I’ll be brief so that we can move on from this topic rather quickly.

First, what did Jesus think about these books that we now call the Apocrypha and the Catholic Church calls Deuterocanonical? It seems that Jesus did not regard them to be on par with the Scriptures. Any time that He discussed the Scriptures these were left out. In a few places it is rather obvious.

“Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.” -Luke 11:49-51 ESV

If you were looking at the Bible that Jesus had in His day, or that Jews have today, you would see Abel being the first person martyred and the last one would be Zachariah in 2 Chronicles. Jesus does not mention anything that happened in the books that the Roman Catholic Church states are Scriptural, even though it would make sense to do so here if these books were a part of God’s Word.This is not the only place that something like this occurs. Notice Luke 24:44.

“Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” –Luke 24:44 ESV

Remember again the Hebrew breakdown of the Books of the Bible. It was the Law, Prophets, and Writings. Now, here Jesus says “the Law of Moses, and the Prophets and the Psalms”. He says Psalms because it is the first and largest book that section. Like many other people in Jesus’ day He was using the title of the Psalms to describe the entire section of books that included poetry, wisdom literature, and historical writings. In other words, Jesus was saying that everything written about Him in the entire Old Testament that God’s People currently had and that we hold in our hands today had to be fulfilled. Notice that there was no fourth section mentioned.

I think it is safe to say from these omissions that Jesus did not believe that there actually was another section of books that the Roman Catholic Church calls Scripture today.

On top of all of this the greatest and most extensively studied Jewish Historian stated the number of books that were in the Hebrew Bible. His name was Josephus. He stated,

“Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time”

And we also have the same type of thing recorded from one of the greatest biblical scholars of the Early Church, Origen (185-253). He said,

“But it should be known that there are twenty-two canonical books, according to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet.”

Here is the case against the Apocrypha.

1. The Hebrew people do not recognize these books as Scripture.
2. Historically, the Hebrew people have not recognized these books as Scripture.
3. Jesus did not recognize these books as Scripture.
4. The Early Church did not recognize these books as Scripture.

I believe that it is safe to state that the Apocrypha is not part of God’s Holy Word.

And, again, the Bible that you hold in your hand is the Bible that you are supposed to have. You can be assured that the Old Testament that you have today is the same Old Testament that you are supposed to have today.

Biblical Basis For The New Testament

The Old Testament itself declares that God is going to do something different in the New Testament time period. God was going to make a New Covenant. The Latin word for Covenant is “Testamentum”, which is where we get our word “Covenant”.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” – Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV

This New Testament ended up being the testimony of God’s New Covenant Work. In other words, it’s about Jesus. It’s about what He did (the gospels), and what that means. In fact, the writer of Hebrews explains it like this,

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir for all things, through whom also He created the world.” – Hebrews 1:1-2 ESV

In the Old Testament God spoke to us through the Prophets and now things are different. God has spoken to us by His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the basis for the New Testament. God declared that He would do something different, and the New Testament is the testimony of that different thing that God did.

The Big Difference In The New Testament Transmission

The New Testament is a bit different discussion. The transmission of the New Testament was much different than that of the Old Testament. Letters were written to churches. Accounts of Jesus’ life were written down and given to people or churches. And from there they were copied. This is what was discussed last week. In one sense it helped us to preserve God’s Word. We can be assured that we have what was originally written because of the massive number of copies that we have. This is through the practice of textual criticism, which is the method of determining the original text of the New Testament. There is not enough time to cover it here. Dan Wallace does an excellent job of describing what it is in this video. It is lengthy and discusses something complex but it is helpful.

How Was The New Testament Written?

Jesus made a promise to His Disciples before leaving the Earth. He said,

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” – John 14:26

The Holy Spirit would later enable the apostles to remember what they had been taught. This is interesting because the disciples did not just sit down and start writing after Jesus ascended into Heaven. They went about the work of preaching and teaching until they decided that a written testimony of the works of Christ needed to exist. Then they wrote what we call the New Testament today. Again, we see that God so oversaw the process that the words that we have today are the words that He wanted us to have. It is “God breathed”.

Another interesting piece of information that is also helpful here is that Peter actually stated that Paul’s writings should be read as other Scriptures. Peter is saying that Paul’s writings should be taken on par with the Old Testament and other New Testament writings.

“And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” – II Peter 3:15-16

Jesus promised that the Apostles would be given remembrance by the Holy Spirit of His teachings and because of that we have the New Testament that we carry around with us today. God so oversaw the process of His Word being written that we have what He intended for us to have. We have God’s Word.

What Stays? What Goes?

The question that we have to answer now is how was it decided which books of the Bible would become the New Testament. This is of massive importance. This is what is called Canonizing. Paul D. Wegner hits the nail on the head when he said,

“It is important to remember that the Christian church did not canonize any book.  Canonization was determined by God.  But the early church needed to know how to recognize Canonicity” –Paul D. Wegner

We have to start in the right place. The Early Church did not canonize the books of the New Testament, they went through a process to determine which Books God had ordained. Their criteria for making this decision was this.

1. It was either written by or closely tied to an apostle. The apostles are generally seen as being the 11 Disciples who remained after Christ’s death and Paul. The Book of Mark fit this description though Mark was not an apostle because of his relationship with Peter. He followed Peter around and dictated the Gospel of Mark from what Peter said. Some say that you could almost call this one the Gospel of Peter. Luke’s relationship with Paul made it fit here as well.
2. It was orthodox. If the book was outside of the faith it was disregarded.
3. It had universal recognition. It was recognized as authoritative throughout the Church.

The Church Councils of Hippo Regius (393) and Carthage (397) came were in full agreement with our current 27 Book New Testament based on the criteria listed above.

This, to me, seems to be a very good way of figuring out what books were Scripture. And, this is important for you to know as you go forward. It will most assuredly be the topic of conversation on many History Channel specials as Easter approaches. There is almost always a special on books like “The Gospel of Thomas” or another book much like it. But, interestingly, these books were never even in consideration. One reason for that is that it wasn’t even written until around the year 300. This is around 200 years younger than any of the other New Testament writings. The same can be said for other books like The Gospel of Mary and others. It simply did not fit the criteria. Jesus promised the apostles that they would have this divine recollection of His teaching and so their words were authoritative. They were trusted and their words made it into the Bibles we have today.

Conclusion

Last week we saw that we could trust what we have today in our Bibles to be the Scriptures. Today we saw that the individual books that we have are the right ones. This is an area of Christianity that seems to constantly be under attack by teachers, professors, and even friends of yours that watched a YouTube video. But here’s the truth of the matter. We really can trust the Bible we have today. It is God’s Word and has been faithfully transmitted to us even today.

I hope and I pray that this gives you an immense confidence in the Scripture that you hold in your hand today. If you are not a believer and you are reading this then I hope that you are convinced that you can trust in the One that the Scriptures point to that lived a perfect life and died for sin. He has made a way. The testimony of the Scriptures are true. Now, trust in Him.

R. Dwain Minor