How Many Books?Brownie3, someone in this thread said they believe they are following the traditional view of the Church toward the various books of scripture. However, it is a fact that there is not now nor has there ever been a single list of the books of scripture for all Christians. It is my contention the truest way to follow the tradition of the Church universal is through a sythesis of all the books!
I do not believe the ancient witness of the Church should be discounted. The most ancient communions of faith have preserved a legacy of scripture the value of which should be reconsidered for the whole Church in the 21st century. I believe the books accepted within the traditions of each of the ancient communions of faith should be accorded their place. In this light, "The Bible" in its totality should consist of the books which have been considered scripture by all the ancient communions of the Church. It is the testimony each of the ancient communions of Orthodoxy to the rest of the Church that these books have stood the test of time and have served as a resource for instruction and edification for countless people of God over the long roll of the centuries. Viewed in this way, this discussion should never disintegrate into an evaluation of Roman Catholic vs. Protestant canons as the relevant information pre-dated them both.
Since these books are typically missing from Bibles in the West, it is a fact their value and use in our churches today is often unknown. I believe this is an unfortunate state of affairs; in fact, the rediscovery of these books should be a rich treasure trove of teaching, information and blessing for all God's people throughout the world. If we discover these books are indeed God's gift to His people, we will realize we have been cheated and impoverished by their neglect.
Bibles with Sixty-Six Books
Even though many Christians regard the sixty-six books found in most personal Bibles as a kind of bedrock of scripture, it would be an oversimplification to assume even these sixty-six books have always enjoyed universal acceptance as scripture. If you categorize these sixty-six books by their degree of acceptance you find there are three classes of books: -those whose acceptance was universal, -those whose acceptance was initially doubted by some but their acceptance eventually became universal, and -those which were doubted and whose acceptance became almost universal.
SCRIPTURES RECEIVED WITH UNQUALIFIED ACCEPTANCE
Of the sixty-six books contained in most Bibles in the West, fifty-four did not present any obstacles for their universal acceptance. In other words, there is no historical record of debate whether these fifty-four books were to be considered inspired by God.
For the rest of the sixty-six books, twelve in number, there was initially some doubt as to whether they should be included. As we shall see there were a number of ways in which this question was answered.
SCRIPTURES RECEIVED WITH QUALIFIED ACCEPTANCE
1. Books which came to have universal acceptance.
Of the 12 books of the biblical corpus for which there was debate, seven were subsequently accepted universally. These books are,
Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Ezekiel, Hebrews and
James. Objection was raised to Esther because the Hebrew text contains no mention of the God. Proverbs was doubted because it seemed to contain self-contradictory statements. Ecclesiastes seemed to be too pessimistic about life. The Song of Songs seemed to be to occupied with things carnal. Whether the Book of Ezekiel was actually penned by the prophet Ezekiel was doubted. Hebrews was doubted, it is said, because it was thought not to have been written by Paul. James was slow to be accepted as well. These were ultimately accepted and added to the group of scriptures accepted by all.
2. Books which came to have nearly universal acceptance.
There are an additional five books which today are still not accepted universally. They are
2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and
The Revelation to John. In the Syrian Orthodox Church these books are referred to as "the five" due to their not having been received by them from early times in the Aramaic language. The fact these epistles can only be found in Greek caused the Syrian Orthodox Church to reject them for nearly 2,000 years. Despite this, it is safe to say, the acceptance of "the five" as inspired scripture has been nearly universal in the Church worldwide.
More than Sixty-Six Books
If you categorize the additional books by their degree of acceptance you find there are three more classes of books: -those whose acceptance is pervasive, -those whose acceptance is somewhat limited, and -those accepted in historic times.
3. Books which came to have pervasive acceptance.
There is another group of books which had nearly universal acceptance for centuries. The titles of those books are
1 Esdras, Judith, Tobit, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, The Prayer of Manasseh, Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Psalms 151, and additional chapters to the books of
Esther and
Daniel. For more than 1,000 years, these books were accepted by all Christians, though doubts about them were raised and continued to resurface from time to time. This group of Old Testament-era books are different from the rest of the Old Testament in that complete copies of them have survived in Greek rather than Hebrew. From early times, the Church used the Old Testament in Greek called the Septuagint, so little notice was paid to the fact that certain books did not exist in Hebrew. As the need for translations of the Old Testament came about, translators began to seek out the Hebrew texts taking note that certain texts did not exist in Hebrew. Doubts concerning the authenticity of those books that were only available in Greek surfaced from time to time during the history of the Church, but no practical changes occured to the ways in which those books were used in practice in the churches.
In the 16th century, when the split between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism came about in the West this topic became more important in a big way. Without removing these books from the Bible, Protestants diminished their importance, relegating them to an appendix to the Old Testament calling it "The Apocrypha". From that time, gradually, Bible publishers in Europe began to drop The Apocrypha section from printed Bibles until today most printed Bibles in the West do not include these books.
The Eastern Orthodox churches, unaffected by the rift in the West, continued uninterrupted in their acceptance and practical use of these books throughout this time.
4. Books which have been accepted by some.
Another group of Biblical books obtained acceptance in one or more of the ancient communions. These books are
2 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jubilees, Psalms 152-155, Paraleipomena Jeremiou, The Apocalypse of Baruch, 3 Corinthians, and
The Shepherd of Hermas. These are books which are currently recognized as scripture in certain churches.
5. Books which had acceptance in historic times.
Additionally, there are books which were accepted in historic times, but were subsequently dropped from the Bible either through changes to canonical lists of books or through the books' having fallen into disuse. Among these books are,
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Joseph and Asenath, Lives of the Prophets, Psalms of Solomon, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, Epistle of Barnabas and
The Didache.
Bob Burns
Southern Baptist
San Francisco