Bible Question: How and when were the books of the bible chosen and by whom? |
Bible Answer: Excerpts from www.barley.com (the Columbia Encyclopedia): The original Old Testament canon was the Septuagint, long used in the Greek-speaking church and still retained by the Orthodox churches. This Hellenistic Jewish translation originated with the translation of the Pentateuch in the mid-3d cent. B.C. Later translations were made from it or patterned after it. The canon of the Septuagint included the books of the later Hebrew canon, with the addition of several others, most of which were those now reckoned deuterocanonical by Roman Catholics and apocryphal by Protestants. Dispute over the canonicity of these books has its source in the Latin Bible, which found its official form in the Vulgate, the work of St. Jerome; this largely agreed with the list of books of the Septuagint, and the list and order of the Vulgate was the canon accepted by the Western Church of the Middle Ages. The 27 books of the New Testament represent only a portion of early Christian literature (see patristic literature). There are other gospels, epistles, narratives, and apocalypses among the Pseudepigrapha and in the Nag Hammadi corpus. The selection of books considered canonical, i.e., authoritative, evolved over the first four centuries of the Christian era. The first canon was compiled by the heretic Marcion in the mid-2d cent. Marcion accepted only the letters of Paul (though not Titus or First and Second Timothy) and a truncated version of the Gospel of St. Luke. The earliest extant orthodox list is the Muratorian canon (c.190 or possibly later), which contains most of the books finally accepted as canonical. There was, however, dispute for some time over seven books (Hebrews, James, Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, and Revelation) eventually included in the canon, and over others (including the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, First Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas (see Barnabas, Saint, and the Didache). The present New Testament canon appears for the first time in the Festal Letter of St. Athanasius (367). The criterion was that works written by an apostle or by a colleague of one could be trusted to preserve the authentic apostolic witness to Jesus. The traditional view has been that a canonical work must also be divinely inspired. All major Christian traditions use the same New Testament. Apocrypha (Gr.,-hidden things), term signifying a collection of early Jewish writings excluded from the canon of the Hebrew scriptures. It is not clear why the term was chosen. The Apocrypha include the following books and parts of books: First and Second Esdras; Tobit; Judith; the Additions to Esther; Wisdom of Solomon; Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus); Baruch; the Letter of Jeremiah (in Baruch); parts of Daniel (the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men; see also Bel and the Dragon and Susanna 1); First and Second Maccabees; the Prayer of Manasses (see Manasseh). All are included in the Septuagint, with the exception of 2 Esdras-4 Ezra. However, they were not included in the Hebrew canon (ratified c.A.D. 100). In 1566 the collection was deemed “deutero-canonical” by the Roman Catholic Church, meaning that their canonicity was recognized only after a period of time. Protestants follow Jewish tradition in regarding all these books as non-canonical. Jewish and Christian works resembling biblical books, but not included among the Apocrypha, are collected in the Pseudepigrapha. The term Apocrypha is sometimes applied to early Christian writings that were once considered canonical by some but are not in the New Testament. Hope this helps! God Bless! Angel |
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Questions and/or Subjects for Bible general Archive 2 | Author | ||
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lancer | ||
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eschiro | ||
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DocTrinsograce | ||
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JCrichton | ||
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poohkie | ||
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katebote | ||
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demonkilla | ||
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gospelpearl | ||
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TheChosenone | ||
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lani | ||
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Aspiring Overseer | ||
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Hank |