Who Selected the Canon?
Some authors have claimed that the canon of the Christian Greek Scriptures was chosen centuries after the fact by a church that was an established power under the direction of the Emperor Constantine. However, the facts show otherwise.
For example, note what Professor of Church History Oskar Skarsaune states: “Which writings that were to be included in the New Testament, and which were not, was never decided upon by any church council or by any single person . . . The criteria were quite open and very sensible: Writings from the first century C.E. that were regarded as written by apostles or by their fellow workers were regarded as reliable. Other writings, letters, or ‘gospels’ that were written later were not included . . . This process was essentially completed a long time before Constantine and a long time before his church of power had been established. It was the church of martyrs, not the church of power, that gave us the New Testament.”
Ken Berding, an associate professor whose field of study is the Christian Greek Scriptures, gives this comment about how the canon emerged: “The church did not establish a canon of its choosing; it is more proper to speak of the church recognizing the books that Christians had always considered to be an authoritative Word from God.”
However, was it merely those humble first-century Christians who selected the canon? The Bible tells us that something far more important—and powerful—was at work.
According to the Bible, one of the miraculous gifts of the spirit that were given in the early decades of the Christian congregation was “discernment of inspired utterances.” (1 Corinthians 12:4, 10) So some of those Christians were given a superhuman ability to discern the difference between sayings that were truly inspired by God and those that were not. Christians today may thus be confident that the Scriptures included in the Bible were recognized as inspired.
Evidently, then, the canon was established at an early stage under the guidance of holy spirit. From the latter part of the second century C.E., some writers commented on the canonicity of the Bible books. These writers, however, did not establish the canon; they merely testified to what God had already accepted through his representatives, who were guided by his spirit.
Ancient manuscripts also provide compelling evidence to support the canon that is generally accepted today. There are more than 5,000 manuscripts of the Greek Scriptures in the original language, including some from the second and third centuries. It was these writings, not the apocryphal writings, that were regarded as authoritative during the early centuries C.E. and therefore were copied and widely distributed.
However, the internal evidence is the most important proof of canonicity. The canonical writings are in harmony with “the pattern of healthful words” that we find in the rest of the Bible. (2 Timothy 1:13) They urge readers to love, worship, and serve Jehovah, and they warn against superstition, demonism, and creature worship. They are historically accurate and contain true prophecy. And they encourage readers to love their fellow humans.
