Early Church | Books of the Bible

Today bestselling books such as The Da Vinci Code tell us that early Christians deliberately chose books for the Bible based their political agenda. The rest of the books are said to have been destroyed, save a few copies of which survived as the “lost books.” But this scenario is totally false.

The Church believes that Jewish and Christian writers were guided by the Holy Spirit (as 2 Peter 1:20-21 states) in the selection of the Scriptures that became the Old and New Testaments. Beyond this guidance, there were other factors that helped determine the validity of a book:

• The book had to be written by a prophet (someone with the gift of prophecy, such as David, Solomon, and Ezra) or an apostle (someone who actually witnessed the risen Christ). The book would have the authenticity and authority its author had.

• Early Church fathers such as Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine lead in the slow careful acceptance of a book as Scripture. Contrary to popular bestsellers (such as Da Vinci Code) the Church never had a meeting where the Scriptures were autocratically decided upon and then forced upon the rest of the Church. Read what the ancient theologian Josephus has to say about the validity of the Old Testament

Instead, the books belonging to Scripture were determined by long and continuous use by both Church leaders and members. Many books were accepted due to the great influence the book was shown to have over the lives of the people. Some books were accepted because the Church members themselves could testify how God used the book to draw many to Him and change their lives.

• Many books were rejected because they supported pagan doctrines denounced by the early Church as unBiblical. Many taught strange doctrines that promoted the Gnostic concept of salvation through "hidden knowledge." Some books taught that Christ was not really human and did not really die on the cross. Such books could not be accepted by the Church because they were contrary to evidence.

The early churches circulated letters of theology to use for teaching. Although some of these letters were from the apostles, often spurious letters were circulated as well:

Gradually the need to have a definite list of the inspired Scriptures became apparent. Heretical movements were rising, each one choosing its own selected Scriptures, including such documents as the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Epistle of Barnabas.ⁱ

The apostle Paul noticed that the Enemy was at work, trying to confuse the believers with false doctrines (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

Thus, the Church asked five main questions about a book to determine its validity as Scripture:
1.    Does the book have a “thus saith the Lord”?
2.    Was it written by a prophet or apostle (or those who claimed to be inspired)?
3.    Was it accepted and used extensively by the Church fellowship?
4.    Did it transform lives, bringing people to know Christ and salvation?
5.    Did its doctrine agree with the other established Scriptures?

One of the important factors for determining the inclusion of a book is its agreement with the rest of the books. The Bible cannot contradict itself. If it did, it couldn't be trusted. One of the basic principles when studying the Bible is being able to trust that the Bible is a cohesive work that doesn't contradict itself.

The 44 authors who wrote the Bible over the period of 1500 years did not contradict each other. That alone is one of the miracles of the Word. Any other book written over the same time period would be hard pressed to achieve such coherence and continuity.

Anyone suggesting that another book should be added to the canon of Scripture needs to ensure that the new book upholds the existing information and retains the coherence and continuity of the Bible.

Let’s use the five tests above against two popular pseudepigraphical books, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas

Back to The Lost Books

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i. "How were the books of the Bible chosen?" from Biblica Online