The Bible (" the Library " or "the books" from Greek) consists of 66 canonical books. These are the accepted by most of the universal Church without lasting dispute throughout history books as inspired by God. In this short article we would look at why the whole compendium is considered by the Church as the book that comes from God. The questions we would look into are:
• What were the criteria, which made these books be put together as one and exclude others?
• What does inspiration mean? Does it mean that all in it is from God or perhaps there is a human element in it too?
Also, an important question is:
• "What is the main message of the Bible?".
The Christian Bible generally comprises two sets of books: Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT). The OT is largely the Jewish Bible and the NT refers to the books, which the ancient Church affirmed as inspired by God and therefore beneficial in great measure to humans. The OT was generally established hundreds of years before the Church was founded by Jesus. The Jewish religious community, by the time of Jesus had a set of books, which were accepted as given by God. They divided them into three parts:
- Torah "Teaching") - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy;
- Neviim ("Prophets") - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi;
- Ketuvim (“Writings”) - Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles
There is no unequivocally proven, official, representative of all Jews, debating event or council that was held to establish the canonicity of all books in the Hebrew Bible, but there is a possibility for a Council of Jabna (c90 AD) to have really occurred, where these books were confirmed as inspired by God. The books listed above were, by then, largely well into use and venerated by the major Jewish groups. By comparing the qualities of these texts we can discern certain criteria, which most probably guided the Jewish sages, when resolving which book is holy (“defiling hands”) and which is not.
One very important thing is that they expected all books that are worthwhile to be written in Hebrew and only partially (if at all) in Aramaic, which had become the vernacular language of most Jews due to their sojourn in Babylon and this language's prevalence in Palestine and the region.
Another criterion was that these books had to contain certain important notions, which, together, made them distinct from all others: the participation of God in human history, the election of Israel for a special purpose (whatever it is) and the covenant between God and man.
A third characteristic of a canonical book was that a writing had to be completed by the time of Ezra (c 5 century BC), who was regarded as the last really eminent person, led by God in a special way and allowed to add to the canon of the Bible.
The last possible criterion was that they wanted to make sure that all major Jewish groups already recognise and benefit from each book by regularly utilising it in religious services.
Only 39 books stood to these requirements and the Jews accepted them as inspired by God.
With the advent of Jesus on earth the Church was established. Less than 300 years after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascendance, 27 books, which will comprise the New Testament were largely crystallising as those, which are worthy for teaching from and following. The criteria, which (in retrospect) most probably guided the collective consciousness of the Church, were:
1. Every book had to be traced back to an apostle from the first generation, when Jesus was walking on the earth. The apostles or their close co-workers could be trusted as authentic teachers of the words of Jesus.
2. The inspired books had to be accepted universally by the vast majority of the Church.
3. They had to bear a consistent message. There could not be a book in the NT canon, which disagrees on anything of theological value with the other books.
4. All books had to pass the “test of universal usefulness”. They had to be used in liturgy across most of the Church.
Regarding the OT, the ancient Christians readily accepted the Tanakh as God’s word because Jesus and all His first apostles did too.
We can see that all these criteria of canonicity used by Jews and Christians leave no real room for any other known to us book to qualify as authentically inspired by God for teaching men His will. There were numerous other books, which different, self professing, Christian groups accepted as originating from God, but none could stand to the criteria outlined above. At stake was the salvation of man. The heavy plight of the world seemed to have no end. Those who lived more than 40-50 years were considered lucky if one could call “luck” the plagues of disease, helplessness in older and more frail age at a stage of life when the burden of having numerous children would leave no time for the elderly to be cared for by their own kids. Also, it is estimated that every third birth was ending in fatality! The wars and perennial attacks from all sides made life even more unpredictable. The power that the violent men had over the weak was unchecked and the consequences of the corrupted with sin human heart could be seen all over the place. Solomon would say “its better for a person to have never been born at all and never see the evil that is going on in the world” (Ecc. 4:3). Mankind needed (and still does) salvation, which can come by changing certain aspects of their very nature of thinking and value system. The inclination of humans to sin against each other and their Creator could be really solved only by Divine intervention. The Bible is a record of the most fundamental historical part of that intervention, which theologians call “the history of salvation”. Its main message is that God would not leave evil unchallenged and He wants humans to join Him in eradicating it. The separation between the perfect and holy God and the fallen humanity is bridged by God becoming a man and thus identifying with the human race forever. This guarantees that humanity would win its battle against sin, evil and their ultimate consequences: suffering and death. The Bible is unfolding a story that is “breathed out by God and is good for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). The Word of God which is contained in the Bible is the medicine for the well known disease of weakness before evil and sin to which humans are subjected.
But what of it is inspired and how much of it is truth? The Bible says about itself that it is “breathed out” by God. Therefore it’s very origin starts with the Divine touch. Does this mean that all that is in it is truthful: scientifically, historically and theologically? We should start answering this question by saying that theologically and philosophically the Bible is absolutely true. If it says that man is corrupted by sin - that is true. If it says that man cannot rescue himself - that is true. If it says that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, lest no one perish, but has eternal life” - that is true. But also when God creates or “breathes out” something into humans, like “His image” and “His likeness” then this means He bestows the level of freedom, which is characteristic for those created after His likeness. This freedom could deviate from the standard that God set. It would not be real freedom if it could not. Therefore, man made a serious mistake by rebelling against God in Eden. Similarly, when God wants to convey His Word He is seeking people, who would speak truthfully what they heard. They do not make mistake on theological issues as they are carefully selected by God (hence the incredible theological consistency of the Bible), but it is not guaranteed that they would not err on secondary in importance questions of science and history, which do not affect in any way that matters the theological truths. God is perfect, but no human vessel is ideal. Therefore, we should expect some mistakes in the text, but never such which concern the salvation and perfection of man. Surprisingly or not surprisingly (depends on the point of view), there are very few real errors in the Bible of any non technical nature and there is not even one “mistake”, which has not been explained well enough by the Christian or Jewish apologists. Given the ancient authorship, redactions and transmissions, it is incredibly consistent and corresponding to most of the truth that we find through the means of science or history.
So the best thing we can do is trust the Bible as the Word of God because it came through us via rigorous process of selection and also we can be confident that God would make sure that all that we need to know about Him would be preserved intact for our benefit.
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