Lyle J. Boudreaux
Despite the multitude of Christian denominations that have sprung up over the last 500 years, there seem to have been few, if any, important divisions among Christians about the authenticity of the canon of the New Testament since the Catholic Church promulgated it at the Council of Rome more than 1,600 years ago.
I. The Genesis of this Topic
St. John Henry Newman, the great 19th century English churchman, scholar and convert to Catholicism, famously once said, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”[1] That seems like a fitting way to begin because the genesis of this essay was my hearing a Catholic convert quote the New Testament passages he references when explaining to his Protestant family and friends why he became Catholic.[2] I noticed that in the dialogue he described, all parties acknowledged the authoritativeness of the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Given this common ground, it occurred to me that the more fundamental questions at issue were: 1) Where did the Bible itself come from? 2) How was it put together? And 3) who decided which books made it into the original group that came to be known as the canon of the Christian Bible?
II. The Nature of the Topic: Historical as well as Theological
From a Christian theological standpoint, the perspective of faith, the answer to those questions is rather simple: the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. Thus, it came from God, right? In other words, it was God who not only guided and inspired the human authors but ultimately decided what books made it in. If one accepts that premise, then the main question becomes How? Was the Bible handed to someone by an angel at some point a long time ago? » Read More
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