Canon

Development of the Canon

• No book of the Bible lists the books of the Bible.
• The determination of which writings to treat as inspired, Sacred Scripture and which writings to treat as not intended by God to become part of the Bible is an extra-Biblical decision.
• "Canon of the OT and the NT."

The misuse of Scripture

• Jesus left a Body, not a book.
• No verse in the Bible says "Every teaching of the Church must be backed up by a verse in the Bible." This is an extra-Biblical decision. It is an act of hypocrisy or ignorance. The people who set this as the standard for deciding what may and may not be taught violate the standard in the very act of stating it.
• The doctrine of "sola Scriptura" is not found in the Scriptures. "Sola scriptura" is a slogan invented by Martin Luther in the 16th century.

Canon-within-a-canon

This is an error that is common among many Protestants. They select some books from the canon of the OT or the NT and neglect others.

Rejection of Seven Old Testament books

The proper name of the Hebrew Scriptures is "TNK," which stands for:

• "Torah," the Hebrew word for "Law."
• "Nebi'im," the Hebrew word for "Prophets."
• "Kethub'im," the Hebrew word for "Writings."

After Persia was conquered by Alexander the Great, Jewish children growing up in cities outside of the Holy Land tended to speak Greek as their first and most natural language. There is a legend that 70 rabbis independently translated TNK into Greek in one month's time and found that their translations matched letter-for-letter. The Greek translation of TNK was therefore called the "Septuagint" (the Greek word for "70") in honor of the 70 translators. "Septuagint" is then abbreviated as "LXX" using the Roman numerals for "70."

The Septuagint did not just translate TNK. Seven new books composed in Greek or else whose Hebrew original has been lost were added to the canon.

Catholics accept these books as inspired by God:

• 1 & 2 Maccabees
• Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
• Wisdom
• Baruch
• Tobit
• Judith

Martin Luther judged that these books were not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Those Protestants who follow Luther's teachings accept only the 39 books found in TNK as inspired by God and set aside these 7 books from LXX as "apocryphal" or "deuterocanonical."

No book of the Bible resolves the question of exactly which scriptures from the time of the Old Testament were inspired by God. The question can only be decided on extra-Biblical considerations.

Attempt to Discard New Testament books

A prime example of this is Luther's rejection of the letter of James as scripture inspired by God.