How Was The Bible Put Together?

Q: How did people decide what went into the Old and New Testaments? It must have been a hard task to put God's word together for future generations. Are there any books or resources that explain how the books of the Bible were collected and recognized as Scripture?

A: The resource that I recommend to everybody is an older book called A General Introduction to the Bible by Geisler and Nix. It deals with the whole issue of canonization, which is the process we use to describe how books were recognized as scripture, both in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.

The processes for Hebrew and Greek scriptures were distinct but somewhat parallel. There was a consensus among the people of God that these were the authoritative writings of the apostles and prophets, especially in a New Testament context. It's important to point out that the church did not make those writings God-inspired or authoritative; the church simply recognized that those were the God-inspired and authoritative writings.

They had criteria for this recognition, such as whether the author was an apostle or a close associate of an apostle, internal integrity, and generally recognized value for edification among the people of God. From New Testament times, the writings of the apostles were recognized as scripture. For example, Peter refers to Paul's writings as scripture, and Paul indicated that his epistles should be read in congregational meetings, similar to the reading of scripture in synagogue meetings.

The Hebrew scriptures had already come together as a recognized body of inspired scripture well before the time of Christ. The church officially recognized the books at the Council of Carthage in 396. However, there was something called the Muratorian Canon or fragment from the mid-second century that had almost all of those books already defined as normative. Controversy over which books belonged in the New Testament became significant only when challenges arose, such as from Marcion, who sought to exclude certain books. Often, Christian theology has been reactive, forming itself in response to a threat.