The Bible As We Know It

This sovereignty of Scripture over the church may be defended not only from the New Testament but secondarily from the actual process by which the post-apostolic church arrived at the canon. Our twenty-seven books in the New Testament canon were first codified in an official list at the councils of Carthage (393) and Hippo (397). (1) Two important facts, however, need to be considered.

First, most of these texts were already widely recognized and employed regularly in public worship as divinely inspired. In fact, this was one criterion that was used for determining which texts were canonical. As we have seen, Peter refers to Paul's writings as Scripture. Tertullian was already quoting from twenty-three of these twenty-seven books by the late second and early third centuries. The wide use of these books (as well as the Old Testament) by the ancient Christian writers to judge all views and controversies testifies to the fact that they were already functioning as Scripture long before they were officially listed in a canon. In 367, Athanasius drew up the first list of all twenty-seven books, even identifying it as a canon, and maintained that "holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us." (2)

Second, from these ancient Christian writers we can identify four main categories in which texts were to be placed: canonical, widely accepted, spurious, and heretical. (3) There were criteria employed for determining canonical books, all of which had to do with the nature of the texts rather than with the authority of the church. These criteria included well-attested apostolic authorship or certification, wide acceptance and use of Scripture already in church practice, and consistency of content-or what became known in Reformation teaching as the "analogy of Scripture" (interpreting passages in the light of other passages, comparing the parts in the light of the whole, and vice versa). Though widely accepted, the canonicity of the letters of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John was debated in the early church before these books were recognized as belonging to the canon.

Both of these points underscore the fact that the church was recognizing, not creating, the canon. These leaders of the ancient church were engaged in historical criticism-determining which books were canonical, not endowing them with canonical authority. Athanasius, for example, rejected the Shepherd of Hermas because, although it was widely used, it did not have adequate evidence of apostolic origin and did not bear the marks of belonging to the circle of the apostles themselves. As Emil Brunner notes, this process was far from an arbitrary exercise of ecclesiastical power: "If we compare the writings of the New Testament with those of the subapostolic period [e.g., Epistle of Clement, Shepherd of Hermas], even those which are nearest in point of time, we cannot avoid the conclusion that there is a very great difference between the two groups; which was also the opinion of the fathers of the church." (4)