Who decide what books go into the Bible ?

So why do we put Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John into

the Bible

But gospels by Peter and Thomas do not go into the Bible ?

Canon

• Canon is a list of authoritative books

• Canon of the New Testament = the set of books found in the present day Bible

• As you know, there are many other “gospels” besides Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

• So WHO decided on the Canon ?

Spread of false teaching• False teaching is not new and happened

very early – see 2Peter 2:1• (People loves to adapt ideas to suit

oneself)• One very early stray teaching on Jesus is

by combining Greek philosophy on knowledge – Gnotics (everyone is “god” and you can be saved by finding knowledge)

NT Canon: When ?• Constantine became emperor of entire Roman

Empire in 324 A.D.• He had a dream that told him that if he would

fight using the CROSS as battle emblem, he would be victorious

• After Constantine became emperor, he established Christianity as official religion in 325 A.D.

• He called together and presided over the Council of Nicaea that 300 bishops attended

NT Canon: How ?

• Bishops at the Council of Nicaea decided on the NT canon using these criterias:– Author of the book must either know Jesus

personally (a disciple) or must be a companion of a desciple. (writing – letters and commentaries - by later bishops excluded)

– The book itself must be WIDELY used throughout the christian community at that time. (Writings such as gospel of Thomas, gospel of Peter, etc. excluded)

OT Canon: How ?

• This one is easy:– The Jews have already defined

(through centuries of tradition) which books belongs to their Holy Scripture.

– The Old Testament is the same set of books as the Jewish Scripture

Summary

• The set of books in the Old Testament are decided by Jewish tradition (God’s chosen people)

• The set of books in the New Testament were decided long ago by CAREFUL deliberation using very STRINGENT criteria (rest assured that your Bible does not false teaching)