Which people organized the bible canon in its current form?

Question

P/s: please not the usual simplistic ''Man didn't organize the canon, God did.''

fine, assuming God was ultimately behind it, which human vessels did he use and when was the current protestant canon finalized?

Answer 1

The canon of the Hebrew Scriptures was well established before Jesus was born. 1) The New Testament quotes from or alludes to every Old Testament book but two. 2) Jesus effectively endorsed the Hebrew canon in Matthew 23:35 when He cited one of the first narratives and one of the last in the Scriptures of His day. 3) The Jews were meticulous in preserving the Old Testament Scriptures, and they had few controversies over what parts belong or do not belong. The Roman Catholic Apocrypha did not measure up and fell outside the definition of Scripture and has never been accepted by the Jews.



The canon of Scripture was not created by the church; rather, the church discovered or recognized it. In other words, God's Word was inspired and authoritative from its inception - it "stands firm in the heavens" (Psalm 119:89) - and the church simply recognized that fact and accepted it. Jude verse 3 states that a Christian's faith “was once for all entrusted to the saints.”



Clement of Rome mentioned at least eight New Testament books (A.D. 95). Ignatius of Antioch acknowledged about seven books (A.D. 115). Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle, acknowledged 15 books (A.D. 108). Later, Irenaeus mentioned 21 books (A.D. 185). Hippolytus recognized 22 books (A.D. 170-235). The New Testament books receiving the most controversy were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John.



The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.



The main events to do with Bible canon were:

100 AD Council of Rabbis at Jamnia produce Palestinian canon in Hebrew.

185 AD Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons develops New Testament canon



The Council of Nicea in 325 AD had nothing to do with the Bible canon. Throughout the early centuries of the church, few books were ever disputed and the list was basically settled by A.D. 303.



It is God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, who inspired the writing of the Bible, and who has preserved his word right up until today. It is God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, who used the ancient Hebrew prophets and the first century Christians to bring together his holy and inspired word.



Catholic Christians together with Protestant and Evangelical Christians hold the same canon of the New Testament, 27 books, all having been originally written in the Greek language. Catholic Christians accept the longer Old Testament canon, 46 books, from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Alexandrian Canon. Protestant and Evangelical Christians, from the Reformers onward, accept the shorter Old Testament canon, 39 books, from the Hebrew Palestinian Canon. Jews (God's chosen people) have the same canon as Protestants. I find that significant, don't you?



Please read the following links which answer the questions:

What is the canon of Scripture?

How and when was the canon of the Bible put together?

How do we decide which books belong in the Bible?

Who gave us the Scriptures?

Answer 2

Jesus and the first Christians already had two-thirds of the Bible available to them in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament). Flavius Josephus (Jewish historian) wrote 'Contra Apionem' dated around AD 100, and quotes parts of the Hebrew canon. For him the canon was closed, and had been from the time of Artaxerxes, 465-425 BC, essentially the time of Malachi.



The Dead Sea Scrolls had quotes from most of the OT books, showing all of them to be canonical no later than 130 BC. There were 7 additional books about the history of the Jews during that 400 year interval which are called 'Deuterocanonicals' by Catholics, and 'Apocrypha' by Protestants.



It wasn't till from 20 years after Jesus was resurrected that Christians began to write about him, and also apostolic letters to the growing Christian congregations. Before the end of the 1st century, the last New Testament letter (book) had been written. The Christians circulated and copied all of them, so the Greek scriptures were formed and used before AD 95.



As other letters were also being written (some by Gnostics trying to infiltrate the Christians), the Church had to deal with a slowly growing problem of sifting uninspired documents out. Two Church Councils (Hippo in AD 393 & Carthage in 397) had a canon of 46 books for the OT and 27 for the NT - just what the Protestants had in 1529, though the 7 Deouterocanonicals were put by Luther into an appendix at the end of the Bible. The settled canon was exactly the same back then as for the much later Council of Trent in 1563. From around 1826 the Protestants didn't include those 7 even as an appendix.



Anybody claiming that the Council of Nicea in AD 325 decided the canon of scripture is talking rot. It had nothing to do with the matter.

Answer 3

The people who organized the bible canon vary with the version being considered. The following are excepts that suggest that there were many groups involved, none of which really established the final canon that is currently in use by most (not all) Protestant denominations.



The Old Testament canon was established by the Jews (it said that it took place about 70 AD). Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BC and 200 AD, indeed a popular position is that the Torah was canonized c. 400 BC, the Prophets c. 200 BC, and the Writings c. 100 AD perhaps at a hypothetical Council of Jamnia — however, this position is increasingly criticised by modern scholars.



Though the Early Church used the Old Testament according to the canon of the Septuagint (LXX), perhaps as found in the Bryennios List or Melito's canon, the Apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead, the New Testament developed over time.



Writings attributed to the apostles circulated amongst the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating in collected forms by the end of the 1st century AD. Justin Martyr, in the early 2nd century, mentions the "memoirs of the Apostles," which Christians called "gospels," and which were considered to be authoritatively equal to the Old Testament.



Evangelicals accept the original texts in Hebrew and Aramaic as the inspired Hebrew Bible, rather than the Septuagint translation into Greek, though many recognize the latter's wide use by Greek-speaking Jews in the 1st century. They note that early Christians evidenced a knowledge of a canon of Scripture, based upon internal evidence, as well as by the existence of a list of Old Testament books by Melito of Sardis, compiled around 170 AD.



Full dogmatic articulations of the canons were not made until the Council of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Greek Orthodox. Other traditions, while also having closed canons, may not be able to point to the exact years in which their respective canons were considered to be complete.



== end of citations ==



The Wikipedia article (always a good place to start but not necessarily a final authority) provides several tables you may find useful in determining which works are part of the canon of various groups.

Answer 4

The Bible Canon in its current form has been changed by man. The Original Bible, the Canon of Scripture was composed by the Catholic Church.

Answer 5

There are multiple current forms. This gives a good overview of the two (or three, depending on how you look at it) Biblical canons common in the West:

http://bible-reviews.com/charts_timeline.html



The Puritans are the primary influence for the 66-book Biblical canon, they in turn heavily influenced by Martin Luther.



There are very many Biblical canons common in the East (basically: each separate Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox church has its own), and my knowledge of them is very much less...but here is some info on what the major ones are:

http://www.bible-reviews.com/charts_scriptures_d.html



- Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

Answer 6

GOD IS NOT A PERSON YOU FOOL!