THE BIBLE - A SELECTIVE RECORD

While it is true that we have in the Bible a complete record of what God wants us to know, it is also true that this is only a very selective representation of history.
 
At the end of his Gospel the apostle John wrote that if every one of the things Jesus did were written down,
If that was true about the earthly life of Jesus, how much more the timespan covered by the Bible!
 
From creation to the year AD 95, when John put down his pen for the last time, is an awefully long time. Any record purporting to cover all of that would have to be highly selective.
 
Reading the few chapters of Genesis dealing with Abraham, we often think that he had this incredible life, with one extra-ordinary event after the other. In reality, the Bible describes only 16 events covering his lifetime of 175 years. Most of Abraham's life happened between these high (or sometimes, low) points in his life, and we know nothing about it.
 
King Omri of the northern Kingdom of Israel was one of its most successful kings – yet the Bible gives him only a few sentences and mentioned only one of his achievements.
 
Obviously we would have liked a lot more details of just about everything! Which brings us to the question: who decided what should be included in God's book?
 
The quick answer is "God!" – it's His book, after all! But in reality it's much more complicated than a one-word answer.
 
We actually have three questions to deal with:
¤ The first relates to the actual original writing of the books of the Bible (inspiration),
¤ then we have to look at the process whereby some books were recognised as authoritative, and others not (formation of the canon of Scripture), and
¤ lastly we we will look at how the content of the individual books were determined (historical process).
 
(We will mostly focus on the New Testament in this section; in terms of the Old Testament the Church largely followed the lead of conservative Judaism, which went through a similar canonisation process.)

INSPIRATION

As we read the Bible it is clear that we're dealing with the literary words of a variety of authors. Some were used to moving in high social circles, some were poor farmers from the rural backwaters. Some were masters of their literary craft, some could barely express themselves, heaping up grammatical errors attempting to write down what they know had to be recorded. Some lived in the heydays of the Davidic empire, some found themselves persecuted by Jews and Romans alike.
 
And yet, all of these writers were putting down what God has laid upon their hearts, and it seems they knew it was from the Lord:
¤ The prophets regularly started their pronouncements with "this is what the Lord says" or something similar.
¤ Very often the writing prophets would switch to first person speech, delivering their messages as if God Himself was speaking to their audience. It is clear that they saw themselves as God's mouthpieces to His people.
¤ Joel described his writing as "the word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel".
¤ Jeremiah's prophesies were destroyed by an angry king, so he and his faithful scribe Baruch re-recorded it, because the word spoken by the Lord had to get out.
¤ The apostle Paul wrote that "all Scripture is God-breathed" and "useful for...training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16), in all probability referring to the Old Testament; at the same time the apostle Peter was already referring to Paul's writings as on par with "the other Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16) being distorted by people.
 
How could these writers be so sure, each on their own, that they were hearing from God and writing down His Word to humanity? And even though it seems that the New Testament writers didn't sat themselves down to intentionally write Scripture, others around them quickly recognised their writings as Scripture inspired by God. How?
 
To put it the other way round, how did they know that some writings were "God-breathed", and some not? Paul makes reference to at least one other letter he wrote to a church that did not become part of the Scriptures – why did that one disappear as quickly as some others were recognised as inspired by God?
 
The honest answer is that we do not know how the process of inspiration worked, but we know that it did: both in terms of writing and in terms of recognising Scripture. We call it "dynamic inspiration": the writers weren't just given some vague idea to do with as they please, neither were they mere recorders of God's dictation. It's one of many mysteries in the Bible: under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the writers wrote down what God wanted recorded, without becoming mere scribes or machines, and in their own unique styles they wrote exactly what God intended. .
 
You only have to read the apocryphal books from New Testament (and Old Testament) times to know that they are clearly not on the same level as the recognised canonical writings. I do not know how to explain it, but something is missing from the non-Biblical writings, even as they are writing about the same things. Or perhaps we should say that the Scriptures have someting their contemporaries do not have!
 
As far as the Old Testament is concerned, Jesus regularly affirmed it as "Scripture" or "the word of God". As in Matthew 19: 4-5: according to Jesus, God said that a man shall "leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife". But when we turn to Genesis 2:24, we discover that God didn't say these words – Moses wrote them. So, how can Jesus say that God said it, when – in actual fact – Moses wrote it? The answer is simply "all Scripture is breathed out by God".
 
And again, according to Romans 99: 17, "the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up.'" When Paul says "Scripture", he's referring to Exodus 9:16. Turn there, and we discover that it was actually God who spoke these words to Pharaoh. So, why does Paul say that Scripture said it, when it was God who said it? Again: "All Scripture is breathed out by God".
 
Jesus even gives us a definition of inspiration in Mark 16: 36-37, referring to Psalm 110:1: "David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared...." David was the author in the hand of the Holy Spirit, writing what God breathed into him.
 
But spare a thought for the prophets and other writers, taking part in a process neither they nor we could ever understand....
 
The Bible writers were very much aware that they were bringing God's message to their contemporaries. It also seems clear from Jewish and Christian tradition, and from the Bible itself, that no Biblical writer ever thought that they were writing "the Scriptures", much less did they think of writing for future generations. And yet they knew there was more to what they were doing – according to 1 Peter 1: 10-12: If angels long to understand these things, how difficult it must have been for the old Testament prophets and other writers, not to know the ultimate end of what they were doing!

THE CANON: CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF BOOKS TO INCLUDE

The inspiration of the Scriptures brings us to the question of the canon of the Bible – the collection of books that are recognized as divinely inspired and authoritative in Christianity and Judaism. The word "canon" comes from the Greek word "kanon", meaning "rule" or "measuring stick", implying that these texts serve as the standard of faith and moral conduct.
 
How did the Church decide which books of the New Testament to confirm as part of Scripture – the standard for faith and conduct? In a sense, nobody and everybody decided – neither the early Christians nor the Jewish leaders set out to prescribe what "should be" in the Bible. It was a lengthy natural organic process: over the course of time the people of God came to recognise certain writings as being from God, and these were protected and studied and taught, and copied meticulously for future generations. Nobody called meetings – the people of God simply recognised some writings as Scripture from God, while others were not.
 
The writers knew they were inspired, but equally the people of God through the ages recognised some writings as "the Scriptures". The necessity for lists and an official canon only arose when false "Christian" teachers and heretics started cutting out and adding books to fit their views. It forced church leaders get together and ask which books were already recognised and used as Scriptures by the whole church, and then make lists of books recognised by the church as being God-given and God-inspired Scriptures.
 
Looking specifically at the New Testament, the canon developed organically, from the partial Muratorian Fragment (dated around AD 170) to the Councils of Hippo (AD 393) and Carthage (AD 397) which confirmed the New Testament books we have today. The councils simply affirmed what has already happened: the churches had already recognised certain books as inspired by God, and were using it as the Scriptures, without anyone prescribing it.
 
Let's not forget that all believers can, and should, discern between the true and the false. The apostle John made it very clear in 1 John 2: 20, 27: Paul implores the believers in Rome to That surely includes questions of canonicity!
 
The prophet Daniel wrote that he "understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years" (Daniel 9: 2-3, emphasis mine), and immediately began praying according to that "Scripture"! That "word" from Jeremiah was given just before the final exile of Israel a few decades earlier – Daniel recognised it as such even as he himself was writing what would soon become part of the Scriptures!
 
The early believers recognised and used this God-given ability.
 
Much the same process happened with the Old Testament. The Septuagint (the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC), did much to help standardise the list of accepted books. By the time of Jesus the current 39 books were accepted by Jewish communities, and in AD 90 The Council of Jamnia recognised what had already been accepted.
 
It is important to note that the canon of the Bible did not emerge instantaneously; it developed through a gradual and dynamic church-wide process influenced by historical, theological, and practical considerations. The early church very rarely sat down and discussed this issue. Criteria for the inclusion of books developed organically, as the church grew from its Jewish roots to a world phenomenon. As we've said, the emergence of false teachers and heresies forced the church to formalise what has already happened. And that includes the criteria for accepting books as authoratative for the church.
 
In the process of canonisation, decisions followed practice. The criteria were used to confirm the status of a book already accepted by the people of God, not to force a decision on the believers. And when we read the writings of the earliest Church Fathers, and up to the fourth century, it is clear decisions were not taken lightly. It was accompanied by a lot of prayer and extended discussions, because they knew how important their deliberations were.
 
Most New Testament books were accepted by the church almost as soon as they appeared. The Gospel writers were known, and their books were eagerly accepted and copied. The same applied to Paul's letters and most of the general epistles. But as questions arose, the church had to sit down and make decisions, based on some pretty stringent criteria.
 
1. The books had to be aligned to orthodox doctrine, according to the church's Rule of Faith
 
From the very beginning, the early church taught the Apostles' doctrine, or the Apostles' teaching. As we read in the book of Acts, new believers were immediately taught about Christ:
From the start, there was a limited body of truth coming from the apostles, that the church accepted and taught as authoritative.
 
To the early church orthodoxy meant non-contradiction with the Old Testament, agreement with the apostolic preaching and teaching, and agreement with the already-accepted New Testament books. Books that did not agree with the Old Testament and this body of apostolic teaching simply did not make it into the canon.
 
It makes perfect sense: any book that came from God had to be consistent in its teachings, continuing the teachings of Jesus through His specially-chosen apostles.
 
2. An apostle or an associate of an apostle had to have been behind the book
 
Authorship by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle, was a fundamental requirement for a book to be recognised, which guaranteed to the church that the teaching was consistent with that which God had previously revealed. (It also meant that questions of canonicity or not was limited to the lifetime of the apostles.)
 
¤ Authorship was crucial
because of the special promises that Jesus made to His apostles, and the divine authority he gave to them. If a particular writing came from an apostle, its authority was guaranteed: Jesus also said to His disciples that the Holy Spirit would testify of Him, and in turn they would testify to others about Him: Clearly the apostles took their authority seriously, speaking and writing with the authority of Jesus. After a council of leaders met in Jerusalem in AD 51, the apostles issued a statement to believers, reading in part:
All of this means that most of the New Testament books would have been immediately accepted by the churches. Once they recognized the work came from the hand of a genuine Apostle, the authority was assured. The apostles wrote a number of the New Testament books, and there were others who were known as apostles, like James, the brother of Jesus, whom Paul called an apostle.
 
The books authored by the apostles themselves were immediately accepted as authoritative, but some books were written by other writers who belonged to the larger apostolic circle – people who had personal contact with the apostles. For example, the Gospel of Mark was written based on the recollections and preaching of Peter. Luke, the traveling companion of Paul, wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Someone from that apostolic circle wrote the Book of Hebrews, though his identity is presently unknown. James and Jude were also accepted as apostles in the wider sense of the term, which means that every New Testament book has some type of apostolic connection.
 
¤ Apostolic guidance in determining the canon
There is a strong likelihood that each of the present New Testament books received an endorsement by the living apostles. Many of them were still living when most, if not all of, these books were written and circulated. They would have been in a position to give guidance to believers concerning which writings were divinely authoritative, and which writings were not. A prime example is Peter calling the work of Paul "Scripture" in 2 Peter 3:16.
 
¤ Antiquity of the writings was crucial
One of the factors in determining the canonicity of a book was its antiquity. All of the New Testament documents were written in the first century – most before AD 70. Books that were written after the apostolic era could not be considered for the New Testament Scripture, because only the immediate apostles of Jesus had the authority to speak and write for Him. This authority was not transferred, neither was it transferable.
 
3. The Believers (Churches) Should Have Accepted and Used These These Writings.
 
The third important factor was continuous use by the believers. Any writings that would have God's divine authority behind them would have had to have been continually used by believers from the beginning. The New Testament lays down this principle. The writings were to be read out loud in the church and the writings were to be circulated.
 
The way in which Peter spoke of the letters of Paul indicates that the knowledge of them was widespread in the church. The churches had been obedient to the command to circulate the letters of the apostles.
 
There Was Immediate and Universal Acceptance of the Writings
Acceptance by the churches was a key factor in recognizing which books God had divinely inspired. Indeed, there were a number of books that were rejected by the church because it was recognized they did not have God's authority behind them. What is impressive is that there was a surprising amount of agreement among the early believers as to the divine authority of our present New Testament books.
 
What is more, a book should have been recognised as authoritative across the entire Christian world. Books that were only accepted by a small or localized group of Christians were not likely to be included in the canon.
 
The Acceptance of the New Testament Was Gradual, but Continuous
The books that are in our present New Testament were copied, recopied, and widely circulated among the churches. There must have been some reason for this. Obviously, the people believed these writings had some special worth to continue to circulate them.
 
They were read, studied, and cited as authoritative alongside the books of the Old Testament. The early Church Father Justin Martyr wrote in AD150: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoir of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits". There is no doubt that the early church recognized the authority of the Old Testament. The fact that they were reading New Testament texts alongside the OT suggests they believed both were Scripture.
 
Eventually, the books were placed into a collection. While the New Testament writings were immediately recognized as authoritative, the need for a collection of sacred writings occurred gradually.
 
The Authority of Only a Few Books Were Ever Questioned
Only a few of our present New Testament books were even questioned. In addition, it was only a minority of people that had any doubts about them. For the most part, the doubts were due to a lack of knowledge about the origin of these books. 2 and 3 John were written to individuals, so it took time for them to become widely-known, but once discovered they were not doubted. In the case of the letter of Jude, it's small size and quotations from uninspired writings led to some initial questions, but eventually it was accepted. We find no example of a book that is presently in the New Testament that was originally doubted by a large number of believers, and then later accepted.
 
4. Spirituality
 
This might be a self-evident criterion, but we should still mention that the content of a book had to conform to high Christian morals and be spiritually transformative. But above all it had to be Christ-centred. As early as AD 61, when Paul wrote to the Colossians, there were already "teachers" and "apostles" claming that faith in Jesus Christ alone was not enough for salvation. If a book was not Christ-glorifying, according to the teachings of the apostles (and there are many such writings, some very early), it had no chance to make it into the canon.
 
5. Practical considerations
 
Some practical matters were also important in the process of canonisation:
 
¤ Worth paying for? Making copies of writings was a difficult process: obtaining writing materials and securing the services of a good scribe was an expensive process. Even though most people was reasonably literate, copying manuscripts was a serious matter, to be done by a suitably-qualified artisan. Nobody wanted to waste time and money on spurious writings!
 
¤ Worth dying for? From the beginning Christians were persecuted, and their Scriptures seized and destroyed. Who wants to be a deluded martyr? Knowing which writings were considered inspired was really a matter of life and death to the early believers.

HOW DID THE WRITERS KNOW/DECIDE WHAT TO INCLUDE IN THEIR BOOKS?

This is a difficult question to answer.
 
We are once again confronted by the mystery of inspiration, dealing with two overlapping but different focuses: the human, and the Divine.
The human authors knew they were hearing from God and bringing his message to their world, and were searching "intently" for greater understanding that eluded them –
but behind them, and largely unknown to them, the Divine Author was as much focused on future centuries and millenia (even ours) as on their immediate present.
The human authors mostly had a contemporary ("here and now") focus, but God had a long-term ("now and forever") focus on the historical message He was creating.
 
In discussing our definition of the Bible in Unit 1 we said that the relationship between God and humanity is the core message, and the Bible recorded its historical development from inception to final fulfillment. God has a plan, and He knows where it's going: This also applies to the writing of Scripture. God's plan plays out in human history, and He recorded the development of that plan. Some parts have already come to pass, some are in process, but eventually it will all be fulfilled when He makes everything new.
 
I will not pretend to know the mind of God, but I think it is logical to expect that God will include only the facts and events that had a direct bearing on his purpose. And that is indeed what we have: a historical narrative relating the necessary facts around the origin, development, and final purpose of the relationship between Himself and humanity.
 
Very briefly: God starts off on planet Earth focusing on the whole human race, and then everything gets broken;
but from the start God promises restoration through a coming Saviour.
Then He focuses on one man,
and the nation coming from him, through which God intends to bless all people.
From this nation came the Saviour for everyone,
who deals with everyone individually at first,
then brings individuals into His family on Earth, and
finally He will once again be with all His people together.
 
So God knew, but how did the human writers know what to record?
 
1. Revelation
 
Some things were obviously given directly to the writers by God, things they did not know or could not understand.
 
¤ Isaiah's prophesy, that Cyrus will allow the Jews to return home from captivity, is so impossible (naturally) that critics who deny the supernatural declare that Isaiah couldn't have written this passage. But ruling out the supernatural is a very biased approach to get around uncomfortable facts. Part of the evidence for the Divine origin of Scripture is exactly that things were recorded that the writers could not have known.
 
¤ All the visions in the latter chapters of the book of Daniel were very upsetting to him, not knowing the when or what about it, even when he asked when it will happen (see Daniel 12). Why record things like that unless you are absolutely certain that God is speaking and revealing things to you?
 
Once again, noboby knows how that process worked, but it happened, and the writers were certain about what they wrote down. Perhaps, if I may borrow a phrase from a science fiction story, it was like "little icebergs drifting in the darkness of his mind". They knew they heard from God and recorded it.
 
It seems that in Old Testament times, when the Spirit "came upon" a person, there were physical manifestations. It might be that they had a definite sense of the Spirit enveloping them, but once again the exact details are not given.
 
Most of the time, however, the knowing wasn't supernatural and direct, but mediated through circumstances and events.
 
2. Current situations
 
Circumstances play a powerful role in how we live life. Just think about yesterday: how much of what you did was in response to circumstances? Something happened, you reacted. Someone said something, you responded. You saw the evil in the world, and started praying. For the Bible writers, the circumstances in which they found themselves also played a major role in what they wrote.
 
This is also the reason why it is essential to be aware of the historical context when we try to interpret the Bible. Some things only make sense if we understand the setting in which it happened or was said.
 
¤ Social circumstances: Social circumstances determine a lot of daily life, and it was also true in Biblical times. What was happening around them had an influence on the Bible writers, and may have heightened their sensitivity to the voice of God. Looking at God's people going astray must have had a profound effect on the prophets. It could very well be that God started speaking to them as they were in prayer, perhaps questioning Him as Habakkuk did.
 
Isaiah would have had no need to prophesy and write down his words if Israel were not disobeying and rebelling against God. Without their sin and waywardness we would not have had an invitation from God to
 
¤ Personal circumstances: All the Bible writers were shaped by their personal circumstances, and it influenced their writing. Many of David's psalms were reactions to his personal circumstances: Saul hunting him like an animal, his sin with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of Uriah...
 
And were it not for the prophet Jeremiah crying among the rubble of Jerusalem, there would have been no book of Lamentations.
 
¤ Historical circumstances: What was happening in the world outside of their immediate circle had a definite influence on the Bible writers.
 
Paul would never have written to the Corinthian church, were it not for their letter posing serious questions to him, and an alarming report from the people delivering the letter to him.
 
Jude was "very eager" to write "about the salvation we share" to those reading his letter, but changed everything due to the actions of "certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago" (Jude 1: 2,3)
 
The wonder and mystery is that God so often worked through circumstances to "trigger" Bible writers, and then gently led them in what they were saying or writing. And very often, especially in the New Testament, they were not aware that they were writing Scripture, yet they did.
 
3. Obedience
 
The writers sometimes recorded things because God instructed them to do so.
 
Moses is a good example: a number of times God instructs him to write things down, and Israel is instructed to keep and obey these writings. On the island of Patmos the apostle John is also instructed a few times to "write down what you see".
 
4. Specific purpose
 
Some writings had a specific purpose that, superficially, had no reason to end up in Scripture. Like all those Biblical genealogies that have us scratching our heads today.
 
Today most of us are not at all concerned about our family trees. But sometimes, even today, your lineage could determine your privileges (or lack thereof) in life:
¤ in South Africa, under apartheid, if your genealogy proved that you were "white", it had major positive effects on every part of your life.
¤ in Germany, during the time of World War II, if your genealogy included Jewish ancestors, it had major negative effects, including incarceration and death.
 
In Biblical times genealogies were very important for a number of reasons, but in the Bible it served two essential purposes, both concerning the Lord Jesus Christ:
 
¤ The Jews kept meticulous family genealogies, so as to validate the promised Saviour when He came. God made numerous promises regarding the Messiah that were linked, firstly, to the family tree of Abraham and the patriarchs, and later specifically to David and his descendants.
During and after the Exile a lot of effort went into establishing and maintaining genealogies for this very purpose.
It was also important in regards to promises and events involving the other tribes, but the Messiah's roots were of particular importance.
 
¤ Flowing from this, the genealogies are proof that God keeps his promises. What was promised to the patriarchs and David regarding the Messiah were eventually fulfilled, as were more than 300 other prophecies, in astounding detail! (Click here for details about some of the prophecies fulfilled in the life of Jesus). This gives us a strong precedent to believe that God will keep all His other promises as well.

IN SUMMARY

The Bible is a very selective record pulled from the history of God's interactions with humanity. God led the writers, directly and indirectly, to select what to include in His communication to us. He inspired them to record what He wanted in their own unique way, and guided His people through many senturies to receive certain recordings as God's Word to them. These writings were protected through the ages, and eventually compiled into the Book we have today.
 
In the words of the Word itself:
 
 

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