I want to know one thing: the way to heaven. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God.

—John Wesley

It is common for Protestant Christians to claim to rely solely on the Bible as their source of religious authority (a doctrine known as sola scriptura—“the Bible alone”). There is a strong intuitive appeal here: If the Bible is inspired by God, then it is without error and authoritative in a way that no other authority could be. This ideal is reflected in statements such as that of Norman Geisler: “When speaking of its divine authority, the Bible makes it clear that this is a final authority, the court of last appeal in everything that it affirms. . . . The Bible, and the Bible alone, is a supremely authoritative book in matters of faith and practice.”Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2002), 240-41.

This is a problematic statement on more than one level. First, the Bible nowhere claims to be “a final authority”, “the court of last appeal”, or “supremely authoritative in matters of faith and practice”. Therefore, these descriptions come from some authority other than the Bible. Second, because the Bible is not a book but rather a collection of books, even if one of those books made such claims for itself, how would we identify the other books as being “in the Bible” without an inspired table of contents? Finally, even if every single book of the Bible identified itself as belonging to the canon of Scripture, why would we trust them? Any writer can claim his writing is Scripture.

The problem of the biblical canon is of supreme importance for the Christian, for if Scripture alone is held to be one’s highest authority, then one must be able to identify Scripture. Before one can rely on sola scriptura, one must ask, “Quae scriptura?” (Which Bible?). Yet, with all the energy devoted to proving the accuracy and inspiration of the Bible, not much is spent on its identification. Many do not discuss the issue at all, and those who do are surprisingly brief.For example, Norman Geisler and Frank Turek’s popular apologetics book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist devotes approximately four of its fifteen chapters to arguing for the reliability of the New Testament, yet only three pages (one of which is a chart) are devoted to the canon question. Another example is Ed Hindson and Ergun Caner’s Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics, which has four pages on biblical inspiration but not even one full page on the canon. As Craig Allert notes, however, “Surely what the Bible is has much importance for what the Bible says.”Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 11.

The Formation of the Biblical Canon

Canon is a Greek term that originally meant a straight rod or rule—a criterion. It began to be applied by Christian writers of the later fourth century to the correct collection and list of the Scriptures. Unlike many other religions, Christianity does not have a Scripture written (directly) by its founder. The process of determining what counts as Scripture is thus of paramount importance.

The Christian New Testament was written over a period of at least forty years by the followers of Christianity’s founder, Jesus Christ, and their associates. It had considerable authority and use by the time it was completed in the first century, but so did other books such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the letter of Clement. No official list of canonical Bible books existed. During the second and third centuries, the Church began to discern these books more clearly, and toward the end of the fourth century, official canon lists began to emerge. This formation took place in three basic phases with continuing debate following.

First Century

After the Resurrection, the stories about Jesus and his teachings were passed along orally by the apostles, who were committed to guarding the message they proclaimed and were promised they would be able do so (Jn 16:13). The apostles’ teaching (whether by word of mouth or by letter) was authoritative (Acts 2:42; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6). The first apostolic documents were written to particular Christian congregations or groups of congregations. The teachings of Jesus continued to play an important role for those who had known the apostles and had been trained by them. By the end of the first century, most of the New Testament books were in use by the churches and were cited frequently by early Church Fathers such as Clement and Ignatius. The first letter of Clement was read at services of the Corinthian church for decades. Even the Hebrew canon was still being debated among the Jews in the first century.F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1996), chap. 2.

Second Century

This basic trend continued after the death of the last apostle, when written documents began to play an increasingly important role for Christians. The Church’s usage of the New Testament writings now evened out with that of the Old Testament. The four Gospels were probably already circulating together at this time, and Paul’s letters were circulating as a collection. These were regularly referred to authoritatively, as were other writings of the apostles. Based on citations, some books, such as Acts, Revelation, and some of the shorter epistles, seem to have been accorded second-class status. Other books, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and 1 Clement were also used but were cited less frequently. Later in the second century, conflicts with three aberrant groups—the Marcionites, the Gnostics, and the Montanists—prompted discussions of which books were acceptable. Some writers began to conceive of the “New Testament” as an authoritative single collection. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (ca. 170), produced the first orthodox attempt at a Christian Old Testament canon following from the Septuagint minus the book of Esther.

Third Century

By the third century the Church’s usage of the “second class” New Testament books had evened out with the “first class” texts. The so-called Muratorian canon was written, listing most New Testament writings and rejecting known spurious writings. However this “canon” did not include Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, James, or 3 John and did include the Apocalypse of Peter (noting that some would not allow it to be read in church) as well as the Shepherd of Hermas, which was said to be allowed to be read but not in church. The author also includes the book of Wisdom in the Old Testament canon.

Fourth Century

In Athanasius’ Festal Letter 39 (A.D. 367) the term canon was used for the first time to specify the content of the New Testament, and this list was the first to match the current twenty-seven-book list. Athanasius includes the Catholic deuterocanonical books (the Protestant Apocrypha), although Esther is left out and noncanonical writings are not excluded from use. This list did not, however, settle the discussion, and alternate lists continued to be drawn up later, especially in the Eastern churches. The first list to match the Catholic canon was the one decreed by the Council of Rome in A.D. 382. The later Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Third Synod of Carthage (A.D. 397) approved the same list. These were local councils, however, and were not considered binding on the entire Church.

Fifth through Fifteenth Centuries

None of the first-millennium ecumenical councils ever pronounced a canonical list of the books of the Bible, but local pronouncements continued to match the list approved by local councils. Pope Innocent I produced the same list of canonical books of Scripture in A.D. 405, and the later Council of Carthage (A.D. 419) approved it. These lists, too, were never taken to be authoritative for the churches in the East, however, and thus canonical “fluidity” continued from the fifth century on. Anglican Bible scholar Brooke Westcott notes the existence of six different lists of the Scriptures even into the tenth century. The West, however, seemed to have settled on the fourth-century canon, and it continued unabated for over one thousand years (e.g., the same list was approved by the Council of Florence in 1441). Eventually the New Testament canon in the East was brought into concert with the West’s after the East’s long refusal to accept the book of Revelation.

Sixteenth Century

The canon issue might have seemed settled after one and a half millennia, but with the Protestant Reformation came renewed discussion. The Reformers produced a new canon devoid of the Old Testament deuterocanonical books, and Martin Luther’s distaste for the epistle of James (“a right strawy epistle”) and his questioning of the “disputed books” (antilegomena) is well known. In his commentaries, John Calvin mentioned conflicting opinions concerning the books of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and Jude. Zwingli also questioned parts of the New Testament canon. Even today, classical Lutheranism distinguishes the New Testament homologoumena from the antilegomena.

Lest this be seen as merely a Protestant issue, it should be noted that “Luther’s opponent, Cardinal Cajetan, following Jerome, expressed doubts concerning the canonicity of Hebrews, James, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. Erasmus likewise expressed doubts concerning Revelation as well as the apostolicity of James, Hebrews, and 2 Peter.”M. James Sawyer, “Evangelicals and the Canon of the New Testament”, Grace Theological Journal 11 (Spring 2009): 45. Although Rome still followed the fourth-century canon, it was not until after the Reformation was under way that the various biblical canons began to be authoritatively decreed in their final form at the Council of Trent (1546).Others soon followed: the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles (1563), the Reformed Westminster Confession (1647), and the Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem (1672).

The Criteria for the Biblical Canon

Given the known history of the biblical canon, why not simply trust that the Church got it right? The Westminster Confession seems to sum up neatly why this would be of concern: “The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God” (chap. 1, no. 4).

In other words, the fear is that if the Church is credited with determining the canon of Scripture, she would somehow come to be in authority over the Bible itself. It is said that the Church only “discovered” the canon but did not determine it. This is true, of course—no Christian tradition claims to have made the books of the Bible to be the inspired Word of God! Not even the Catholic Church makes this claim. See Yves Congar, The Meaning of Tradition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), chap. 3. This is not the issue; the issue is how these inspired books were authoritatively discovered or determined (the words can mean basically the same thing).

Various criteria have been suggested to show how the Church could authoritatively determine the canon without being in authority over it. The problem is that although the history of the formation of the canon is fairly straightforward, attempts to “reverse engineer” the criteria used by the Church to determine its contents is not.John Calvin said that God bears testimony to the canon through the voice of the Spirit in the hearts of the believer (John Calvin, Institutes 1.7.5). Biblical scholar Roger Nicole considers seven criteria: (1) apostolicity, (2) orthodoxy, (3) Christocentricity, (4) inspiration, (5) the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the individual Christian, (6) the authority of the Church, and (7) the witness of the Holy Spirit given corporately to God’s people and made manifest by a nearly unanimous acceptance. Roger Nicole, “The Canon of the New Testament”, JETS 40, no. 2 (June 1997): 200-7. Famed New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce considers six: (1) apostolic authority, (2) antiquity, (3) orthodoxy, (4) catholicity, (5) traditional use, and (6) inspiration. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, chap. 21. Evangelical apologist Norman Geisler asks five questions: (1) Was the book written by a prophet of God? (2) Was the writer confirmed by acts of God? (3) Did the message tell the truth about God? (4) Does it come with the power of God? (5) Was it accepted by the people of God? Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1986), chap. 12. Eastern Orthodox philosopher Richard Swinburne lists just three factors: (1) conformity to Christian tradition, (2) apostolicity, and (3) widespread acceptance by the Church. Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Reformed apologist James White lists only one: inspiration. James White, Scripture Alone (Bloomington, Minn.: Bethany House, 2004), chap. 5. Even if the criteria were agreed upon, however, issues would remain.

Inspiration

Being inspired by God is, by definition, the only real criterion for a book’s inclusion in the biblical canon. This is fine in the abstract, but useless when it gets down to brass tacks—for to respond to the question “Which books are canonical?” with “The books that are inspired” is just to say that we can know the inspired books by their being inspired! The question just gets pushed back a step to “How do we know which books are inspired?” What the canon is does not tell us how to identify it.

Further, if we assume that those in the early Church knew which books were inspired and used this as their means of determining the canon, we run into several problems. First, noncanonical Christian writings were described as inspired in the writings of the early Church (e.g., Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians and Ignatius’ epistle to the Philadelphians). Second, non-Christian writings were described as inspired in the writings of the early Church (e.g., Clement’s Stromata on pagan philosophers). Even the allegedly technical term for God’s inspiration (theopneustos from 2 Tim 3:16) is used of other writings, such as Gregory of Nyssa on Basil’s Genesis Commentary and the Council of Ephesus on its ruling against Nestorius.

Apostolicity

Another seemingly obvious and objective criterion is authorship: namely, if a book is written by an apostle of Jesus Christ, it is inspired and canonical. Even here, though, problems arise. First there is the issue of anonymous books. None of the Gospels name their author in the original text. There have been numerous suggestions as to the authorship of the letter to the Hebrews (the earliest being Paul). There were several Jameses in the New Testament who have been considered to be the author of the epistle of James. And the book of Revelation does not identify its author by name. Although Church tradition is fairly strong on most of these, can we trust that the Church did not lie or was not simply ignorant as to the original authors? Modern skeptics answer no!

Further, what about excluded books that claim to have been written by the apostles (e.g., the epistle of Barnabas or the Apocalypse of Peter)? Since these have named apostolic authors (and are not simply late spurious writings), why are they not considered canonical? The historical fact is that authorship was often a matter of Church tradition. Thus, even if apostolic authorship were a trustworthy criterion, one is still trusting Church tradition for authorial identification.

Spiritual Witness

Trusting that the Holy Spirit will confirm the canonical books to individual believers is fraught with problems. First, no such thing is promised in Scripture itself, and so the very idea is based in some tradition (some cite John 10:27—“My sheep hear my voice”—as a proof text, but this is about the call to salvation, not recognizing authentic Scripture). Second, if this criterion is legitimate, all Christians should be able to distinguish the canonical books (or even verses) from noncanonical ones. But the fact of the dispute shows this to be questionable (which group is hearing the Spirit’s voice?). Finally, if the Holy Spirit really does guide the Church in this manner, why do Protestants not trust the Church of the first 1,500 years of history?

Orthodoxy

Another suggestion is that the canon was determined by comparing various writings to some standard of orthodoxy. It must be asked, though: If the canon was determined by its orthodoxy, would this result from its agreement with itself (i.e., other canonical books—which is circular) or something else (which would seem to place something other than the Bible in authority over the Bible, which is the very thing these theories seek to avoid)? Further, how are skeptics to be answered who claim that the New Testament conflicts with the Old Testament (e.g., Acts 15)? There might be a solution, but who would decide whether it was sufficient? Finally, this test has been used to exclude canonical books from the canon. Some were maligned due to noninclusion of particular doctrines (e.g., Luther advocated excluding Esther, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and James). Revelation was discounted because of its heretical use by the Montanists, and other groups were known to twist the Bible to their own ends. This led Tertullian to assert that “our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures. . . . Wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions.”Tertullian, Prescriptions against the Heretics 19.

Self-Attestation

To say that the Bible is its own test is difficult to take seriously. First, any alleged holy book could make the same claim, and so such a test offers nothing in the way of religious discernment, much less a more detailed method of Christian scriptural determination. Second, even the most recent proponent of such an idea ends up including the classic marks of canonicity in his exposition of the “self-attesting” view.Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2012), 290. But if the Bible’s self-attestation requires an “epistemic environment” that includes most of the standard proposed criteria, why not just say that these are the criteria? Although the theological motivation for such a claim is clearly to avoid “subordinat[ing] the canon to outside authorities”,Ibid., 289. it ends up relying on the same external factors anyway.

Acceptance by God’s People

The leaders of the Church are historically responsible for the canon. Other criteria are often proposed to mitigate the importance of this fact. The fear is that if the canon question is answered by appeal to the Church’s tradition, then, well, “we should all be Roman Catholics today.”Sawyer, “Evangelicals and the Canon”, 45. The problem with this inclusion is that either God’s people used the other criteria in their determination (in which case, they are not really part of the criteria, but only an instrument for employing the criteria), or they did not (making themselves the authority). Thus, it seems that either God’s people are authoritative and the other criteria are unnecessary, or they are redundant as far as criteria goes. Finally, even if this criterion did not reduce to, or do away with, the others, which group of “God’s people” are to be trusted?

Christian Tradition

The biggest problem with this “reverse engineering” procedure is that all proposed criteria were apparently ignored (or simply failed) for (at least) hundreds of years before the canon was finally settled. But if the very early Church did not have a clear view of which books belonged in the canon, how could the Church of the late fourth century have had one? As Roger Nicole states it, “If this principle were as simple as it is thought to be by its advocates it is difficult to understand why it took the Church some 300 years to make up its mind on the exact list of NT books.”Nicole, “The Canon of the New Testament”, 203.

Given the above issues, theologian Herman Ridderbos concludes:

The church did not begin by making formal decisions as to what was valid as canon, nor did it begin by setting specific criteria of canonicity. . . . As their artificiality indicates, these arguments are a posteriori in character. . . . If the canon is discovered by principles within the Bible then it is circular, and if by the Church (whatever its criteria) then it is not “biblical,” but “traditional.”Herman Ridderbos, The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1963), 45-46.

New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger correctly states that “a basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to what was called the ‘rule of faith’. . . that is, the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition recognized as normative by the Church.”Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 251. What these scholars have discovered is that, at root, the Church knew which books belonged in the Bible because the Church knew which books she used as her Bible. These lists were not decrees based on popular fourth-century opinion; they were descriptions of what the Church already recognized as being true tradition.

Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgment of the greater number of Catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the Catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority.Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 2, 8.

What mattered, ultimately, was not whether the Church had an authoritative canon, but whether she had authoritative guidance. The Church could survive without the Bible, but not the Bible without the Church. The rule of faith (regula fidei) is that common faith handed down (paradosis) from the apostles to their successors (e.g., 2 Tim 2:2) and recognized from the very beginning as being the true faith (Jude 1:3). This explains why there seemed to be so little concern over the matter until heretics began making up their own canons in support of their private interpretations. It also makes sense of why some books could go in and out of favor—it is what they taught that mattered.

Providence or Power Play?

This historical explanation accommodates the best factors in the criteria-based theories previously discussed, but incorporates them into the life of the Church instead of making them out to be abstract factors existing outside the Church. The Church existed at least a decade before the earliest book of the New Testament was even begun, and it was four to six decades before the New Testament was completed. Because the Church already knew what the faith was, she could determine the canon of Scripture without ruling over it. It is not that Church tradition was an external standard, as some fear; rather, it is that both the Church’s teaching and the Bible were part of the one Christian tradition.

A Church-determined canon makes some people uncomfortable, however. Besides the misguided concern that it places the Church above the Bible, there are skeptical issues raised as well. If the Church decided which books made it into the canon and which did not, then our faith in the biblical canon cannot be greater than our trust in the Church that determined it. Christians are left with either trust in God’s providential guiding of the Church, or skepticism.

Popular scholar Bart Ehrman describes the situation this way:

The Christians who won the early conflicts and established their views as dominant by the fourth century not only gave us the creeds that have been handed down from antiquity, they also decided which books would belong to the Scriptures. Once their battles had been won, they succeeded in labeling themselves “orthodox” (i.e., those who hold to the “right beliefs”) and marginalized their opponents as “heretics.”Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 13.

Similarly, critical scholar Richard Carrier complains that until the fourth century, there were in fact many simultaneous literary traditions. The illusion that it was otherwise is created by the fact that the church that came out on top simply preserved texts in its favor and destroyed or let vanish opposing documents. Hence what we call “orthodoxy” is simply “the church that won”.Richard Carrier, “The Formation of the New Testament Canon”, http://www.richardcarrier.info/CanonNTSpecialEdit.pdf.

The Christian can, in good conscience, affirm the letter (if not the spirit) of these kinds of assertions with a few corrections. The first error is in assuming that a competing tradition was a church. Jesus established only one Church (which Paul called a “pillar and bulwark of the truth”). That Church was promised never to fail (Mt 16:18; Jn 16; 1 Tim 3:14-15). Being faith based, the Church cannot ultimately have lost the faith, or she would not only have failed but would have ceased to exist.

This leads to the error in the implicit conclusion that the canon is really not authoritative. Simply because fallible men made the determination or recognition of the biblical canon does not imply that it was a fallible process, any more than God’s use of fallible authors necessitated fallibility in their writings. Since the biblical canon is certainly part of the faith that must be safeguarded to ensure the Church’s existence, we can trust that, through God’s providence, the Church did not err in her selection of the biblical canon. As J. P. Holding has stated it, “If we believe in the inspiration of the Bible, then it is also reasonable to assume God’s hand in the matter of the compilation of the canon.”James Patrick Holding, Trusting the New Testament: Is the Bible Reliable? (Maitland, Fla.: Xulon Press, 2009), 250.

Conclusion

If Christians cannot ground the authority of the Bible in its historical reality without violating their own principles, they will remain open for skeptical attack. Unfortunately, many ignore or misrepresent this history and end up with a Bible that is grounded firmly in midair. Making high claims about what the Bible teaches while misunderstanding its formation and nature can lead only to crisis when a believer learns the truth (often from the skeptics themselves). The number of ex-Evangelical atheists attests to the fact that most of the alleged criteria for a book’s inclusion in the canon is either unhelpfully circular or ultimately relies on Christian tradition to be useful. “The conservative American Evangelical apologetic for the shape of the New Testament canon has been historically the weakest link in its bibliology. Arguments for the shape of the canon have been built upon unexamined theological assumptions and historical inaccuracies.”Sawyer, “Evangelicals and the Canon”, 29.

In the end, to trust in the Bible is to trust in the Church that compiled it. Although this fact might upset skeptics or cause others illicitly to conclude that this places the Church in authority over the Bible, that is how it happened. “Those who accept the traditional canon of Scripture today cannot legitimately defend it with arguments which played no part in its formation.”Ellen Flesseman-van Leer, cited in Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 275.

Only if God worked through the Church is this not a problem. If God infallibly guided the Church in her discernment of the canon, then the canon is infallible and trustworthy as a ground for the faith. If the Church cannot be trusted in her determination of the biblical canon, then the Bible is (at best) “a fallible collection of infallible books”. Such a collection hardly provides legitimate grounds for faith in an infallible revelation, much less a faith allegedly based on it alone.