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| For the first about 350 years, the early Christians did not have a book called the Bible, separate writings, many fraudulent, where circulating about during those 350 years. Also during that time in early Christianity, a list was being developed of the books of the New Testament we have today.
From about 120 writings came the 27 book of the New Testament. Since this weeding out process took hundreds of years therefore no one person could have done this, who or what did? Who had the authority to decide and declare the 27 books of the New Testament are the Inspired and inerrant Word of God, and the other 93 writings are not?
| | | Dear John,
In the first place, it was only the Baptist who thought the Biblical text was the inerrant word of God. There was a group of Jews known as Messerites who were in charge of the scrolls. They determined what books should be considered to be canonical. They closed the canon of the Old Testament about 400 BC during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. They declared that after that date, no book could be considered a part of the canonical scriptures. There were several criteria to determine a book’s authenticity.
- It had to claim for itself inspiration.
- It had to have been written before 400 BC.
- It had to agree with everything else that had been written.
- It could not contain anything mythological or questionable.
The first canon of New Testament books was about 90 although it did not include the book of Revelations as it probably had not enjoyed wide circulation by this time. But, after about 120 CE, the New Testament takes on its present form and the canon is basically closed.
Many of the writings written after are products of Gnostic thought, contained much misinformation and even mythology although at times the books known as the apocrypha books did find their way into certain Bibles such as the Latin version. They were basically rejected by the Church as not being a part of the canonical scriptures. The word canon signifies a straight road or rule. From 380 CE from the time of origin, it was applied to the scriptures. Between CE 100 and 400, ten catalogs of canonical books were published. Six of these agree with our present canon and three omit the book of Revelations.
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