If we accept what Jesus endorsed and reject what He didn’t, we come up with the books that made up the traditional Hebrew canon – the same material as is contained in our modern Old Testament. This is a very reassuring way to deal with the issue of canonicity of the Old Testament without getting lost in a lot of complicated details.

I want to begin my message this morning with a few simple questions. I’m fairly sure that most of you can answer them.

How many books are there in the Bible? (66)

How many books are in the Old Testament? (39)

How many in the New? (27)

Are you sure of these numbers? What if I told you that some people believe that there should be a lot more books in the Bible than the ones we have? For instance, did you know that there are 73 books in the Roman Catholic Bible? Catholics have the same 27 books in their New Testament but they have 46 books in their Old Testament.

Why the difference? Are we missing some inspired books that should have been included our Bibles or does the Catholic Bible contain some extra books that shouldn’t have been included?

Further, there are hundreds of books that were written during and after the period when the New Testament books were produced. Some refer to these as the "lost books of the Bible." They believe they were improperly suppressed by church leaders of the fourth century and hidden away in obscurity so that none would find them.

Questions like these are answered when we consider the subject of the canonicity of the Bible. What is canonicity? It’s what I want to talk to you about today. It is a very important Bible subject to understand.

This will be message #9 in the series I began several months ago called "God’s Word – the Bible." Some pre-summer scheduling, a week of vacation, a guest speaker, and a couple of funerals have kept me away from the series for the past several weeks but I want to get back to it this morning. If you were with us before, you will recall that I was addressing the subject of where the Bible came from. I showed you seven critical links between the Bible as it was written in ancient times and our Bible today. These links are: Revelation, inspiration, documentation, circulation, canonization, replication, and translation.

In this message and the next, we’ll deal with canonization.

No, I’m not referring to some kind of big, loud gun. Our English word "canon" as it relates to the Bible derives from a similar sounding Greek term, kanon. Canon refers to a "rule" or "measure" or "standard" of something. The word appears several times in the New Greek Testament. One place is Galatians 6:16 where we read: "And those who will walk by this rule [kanon] peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God." This is not a direct reference to the canon of the Bible. I cite it simply so that you can see the use of the word.

Canon is a general word that applies to many things, not just the books of the Bible, but as it is used to refer to the Bible, it describes that collection of books considered to be the inspired word of God and thus, the standard or rule or measure of our faith and practice. A study of canonicity is a study of how and why the 66 books we have in our Bibles were included and why others were not.

Perhaps you’re wondering, "What in the world does this have to do with me? I'm fine with the Bible as we have it today. Why consider canonicity?"

Canonicity is an important subject because we need God’s full revelation and not just part of it. If there are more books that should be in our Bibles, then the Bible is incomplete and we really need to know it.

Canonicity of the Old Testament is a different study than canonicity of the New Testament so we must consider each separately. In this message we’ll look at the:

While a study of canonicity can be quite involved and time consuming, the concept of canonicity of the books of the Bible is really very simple. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son...."

These verses deal with God speaking in both Old and New Testaments. He spoke long ago to the Jewish fathers (the record of which we have in our Old Testaments) in (or through) the prophets...." In these last days (the New Testament period) He has spoken to us in (or through) His Son, Jesus. Those books of the Old Testament that should be in the canon are those written by bona fide prophets of God. All others books, even those which contain good stories or good history, have no place in the inspired canon. The problem is that we weren't around when God’s Old Testament prophets walked the earth, so we must look for other evidence as to who was an inspired prophet of God and who was not. Studying canonicity amounts to investigating to figure out which books were written by inspired men of God.

The Old Testament wasn’t written all at once. In fact, its production period spans over a thousand years – from about 1500 B.C. to about 450 B.C. The books we have in our modern Old Testament had been completed several hundred years before another collection of books began to emerge that we refer to as the "Apocrypha." The word "Apocrypha" means "hidden" or "secret." The last book of our Old Testament, the book of Malachi, was written about 450 B.C. The books of the Apocrypha that pertain to Old Testament times were written from about 200 B.C. to about 30 B.C. They were written during a time of tumult among the Jewish people when they rose up against foreign oppression. Included in the Apocrypha are the following books:

The seven extra books in the Roman Catholic Bible come from this list.

It isn’t important that you remember all these names but it is good that you know about them when the question of their exclusion from our Old Testament comes up. Though these books can be somewhat useful in establishing a flow of historical events during that 400 plus years between the last book of our Old Testament (Malachi) and the first book of our New Testament (Matthew) there is sufficient evidence to show us that they were never a part of the Old Testament Scriptures, nor should they be considered as by God.

This is the point where a teacher could launch into a discussion of dates and times and books and authors and ancient historical documents to the extent that you might end up feeling quite overwhelmed. Given time and a lot of effort, I'm sure we could master the subject together, but you would be a very busy person for quite awhile. Such a study would be very valid but for the Christian, there is a simpler way. The greatest piece of evidence for the canonicity of our modern Bibles is:

If you accept His authority then you will have no trouble with the issue of canonicity. It will be very simple. Let me show you what I mean.

In John 5:39 Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of His day, "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me." Notice from this verse that Jesus recognized a body of writing in His day that was well enough known among the Jews that He could refer to it as "the Scriptures" with no special qualifier or explanation. Those He spoke to didn’t have to ask "Which scriptures?" The canon of the Old Testament was well established among the Jews of Jesus’ day and it appears that He recognized it – going so far as to say that it spoke of Him.

Matthew 21:42 shows us the same thing. There we read Jesus’ words to the chief priests and elders of Israel: Matthew 21:42, "Did you never read in the Scriptures…?" Again, these Jewish leaders didn’t have to ask, "Which Scriptures?" Whatever the process of canonization may have been up to that point, we can see that an agreed upon collection of writings making up "the Scriptures" was well established by the time of Christ. The fact that He recognized it, and never challenged it, is all the validation needed for a true believer.

So what writings did Jesus and the Jews of His day accept as "Scripture?" They accepted the same ones that you and I have in our Old Testaments, though they organized them in a slightly different arrangement. Our Old Testament has 39 books. Theirs had 22. The difference in number is simply that they combined some of the ones that we arrange separately. Jesus recognized the existing Hebrew canon of His day and called it "the Scriptures." In so doing He endorses our modern Old Testament. And, the Hebrew canon did not include the Apocrypha.

The Hebrew Bible of Jesus’ day was divided into three parts: The Law, the Prophets and the Writings, this last designation sometimes referred to as "the Psalms," probably since the Book of Psalms was the first and the largest book in the third section.

Jesus referred to this three-part division in Luke 24:44 when He said, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."

Note the threefold designation: the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. This was the arrangement used in the Hebrew Old Testament by the Jews of Jesus’ day. In referring to it, and never challenging it, He endorsed their canon of the Old Testament Scriptures which, again, did not include the Apocrypha.

We see His further endorsement of the traditional Hebrew canon of Jesus’ day in His words in Luke 11:49-51:

In these verses Jesus is pronouncing judgment upon His generation of Jewish leaders who were doing exactly what their forefathers had done – rejecting the prophets God sent to them. They were about to see the wrath of God come upon Israel for long years of rejection of God’s prophets over the span of their history "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah…." If you take a look at the traditional Hebrew canon of the Old Testament, you will see that the story of the murder of Abel is found in the first book, Genesis.(1) The story of the murder of Zechariah is found in the last book of the Hebrew canon, 2 Chronicles.(2) The guilt for the murder of all the prophets from the beginning of the Hebrew canon to the end of it was about to fall upon the generation that would soon murder Jesus! That is a serious lesson in itself, but for us inquiring about the Old Testament canon, we see that Jesus endorsed everything in the traditional Hebrew Scriptures from the first book to the last. And the last book was written several hundred years before the Apocrypha.

Another way to see Jesus’ endorsement of the traditional Hebrew canon is to see how he referred to the Old Testament books by their authors. For instance, He cites Moses in Mark 7:10: "For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death'." Obviously He considered Moses’ writings as an inspired part of the Hebrew canon. He also quotes David in Mathew 22:43-44, Isaiah in Matthew 13:14, Daniel in Matthew 24:15, and Jonah in Matthew 12:39. Jesus didn’t quote from every book in the Hebrew Old Testament, but He did quote from books in all three divisions. This is strong evidence that He accepted the entire Hebrew canon of the Old Testament.

But what about the Apocrypha - those books written later, after the last book of the Hebrew Old Testament canon? Did Jesus give any indication that He endorsed them? He did not. Though they existed in His day He never once referred to them or quoted from them.

If we accept what Jesus endorsed and reject what He didn’t, we come up with the books that made up the traditional Hebrew canon – the same material as is contained in our modern Old Testament. This is a very reassuring way to deal with the issue of canonicity of the Old Testament without getting lost in a lot of complicated details.

We can add to this assurance by also considering:

The apostles of Christ and the New Testament prophets quoted from the Old Testament books many times. Yet they never quoted from the Old Testament Apocrypha. This is further convincing evidence that they did not consider these books as inspired.

For my money, the fact that Jesus and the writers of the New Testament endorsed the traditional Hebrew cannon – the same as we have in our Bibles - settles the issue of the canonicity of the Old Testament.

But if a person wants to look outside of the Bible for evidence for the contents of the traditional Hebrew canon, a good place to look is in:

Josephus was a Jewish general who fought against Rome in the revolt of the Jewish people prior to and during the time of Christ. He was not a Christian. He was an historian and we have his writings translated into English. They are quite valuable in giving us a non-Christian view of the beliefs and events among the Jews around time of Christ. Here is what Josephus said regarding the Old Testament canon in his writing, "Josephus Against Apion," which was a rebuttal of some anti-Jewish propaganda in the later part of the first century:

Let me paraphrase that for you as the English translation may seem a little stilted:

"Unlike the Greeks who have many conflicting and contradicting books, we [the Jewish people] have only 22 books which we believe are from God."

If you recall, the traditional Hebrew canon that Jesus and the Jews of His day recognized had 22 books, which, except for their arrangement, contain the same material as our 39 books. The books of the Apocrypha were around, but they were not a part of the Jewish canon. According to Josephus, the only books recognized as inspired among the Jews of His day were those contained in the traditional Hebrew Scriptures and also in our Old Testament.

A little later, Josephus made a statement in the same context that clarifies it even more. In "Josephus Against Apion" he wrote:

Let’s break this down: Josephus says, "It is true, our history has been written since Artaxerxes…." Artaxerxes was the Persian king who allowed the first of the Jews to return to their homeland after the Babylonian captivity. This happened about 450 B.C., about the time of the last book of our Old Testament, the book of Malachi, was written. Josephus is saying that there had been a lot of writing since the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity. Then he continues, "but [this history since Artaxerxes] has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time." He is saying that since there had been no recognized Jewish prophets since the Jews’ return from captivity, these later writings did not have the same authority as the former ones. There had not been "an exact succession of prophets since that time." No prophets since the return from the captivity means no recognized inspired Scripture. Clearly, the Jews of Josephus’ day did not consider the later writings (including the Apocrypha) as inspired.

Christ and the New Testament writers show us that they accepted the traditional Hebrew canon of the Old Testament (which, except for its arrangement, is the same as ours today). Josephus shows us the same thing from the view of the non-Christian Jews of his day.

If Jesus, the writers of the New Testament, and the Jews living in the time of Josephus did not accept the writings of the Apocrypha, it seems like they shouldn’t be there. I’ll mention at least two well-known reasons why they are.

First, about 250 years before Christ the Library of Alexandria sponsored a translation of the Old Testament Scriptures into the Greek language for the benefit of Jews who had been scattered and no longer spoke or read native Hebrew. This effort was carried out by a group of 70 Jewish elders. The resultant translation is referred to as the Septuagint Version. At first they translated only the traditional Jewish canon – the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (or Psalms) as Jesus mentioned in the earlier passage I quoted from Luke. Later, though we don’t know when, the Apocrypha was added to this translation - perhaps not as inspired books, but as historical books. The Greek Orthodox Church adopted this translation and, in so doing, adopted the Apocryphal books along with it. Some other groups followed suit.

Second, the Roman Catholic Church, having rejected the Apocrypha for at least 900 years, added some of the books of the Apocrypha at the council of Trent in 1546 A.D – less than 500 years ago. They did this hoping to resolve a growing number of conflicts they were having with Protestants of the time. This explains the difference between the Roman Catholic Old Testament and the Old Testament that we use.

Perhaps you are wondering how the Catholic Church could just suddenly decide to add these books that had been rejected for so long. The answer to that lies in the Catholic view that the Church is the final authority in all matters – rather than the Scriptures. Catholic theology teaches that the Church gave us the canon. We believe that the canon gave us the church. The difference is critical and explains, among other things, why the final authority for Catholic people is the Pope and for us it is the Scripture. I’ll have more to say about his in the next lesson as we consider the canon of the New Testament and the so-called "lost books of the Bible."

We have every reason to trust that the books that make up our Old Testament are the ones God intended for us to have in order to understand His dealings with man in ancient times and to see and recognize His Son when He appeared. There is no greater proof of this than their acceptance by Jesus and His apostles. We can trust the canon of our Old Testament.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Genesis 4:8
2. 2 Chronicles 24:20-21
3. http://www.searchgodsword.org/his/bc/wfj/apion/view.cgi?book=1&chapter=1
4. Ibid.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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