Talk:Development of the Christian biblical canon

Biblical Canon

This page mentions nothing about the canon of the Syriac Christian church, which omits some New Testament books and adds others.

In the Old Testament - To be canonized, generally you had to be a leader of Israel (i.e. Moses, Joshua) or a King of Israel (i.e. David, Solomon) or recognized as a Judge of Israel (i.e. Samson, Deborah) or a Prophet (i.e. Elijah, Ezekiel) There are some exception however. (Ruth, which may be attributed to Samuel, but no one knows for certain)

In the New Testament - You either had to be an Apostle, or named by an Apostle in one of their letters. The notable exception here is the book of Hebrews, which may be attributed to Paul or Luke, but no one knows who authored it for certain.

Yet another requirement, was that a book (or letter) had to "reveal the divine nature of God" in order to be included. Some of the books of the Apocrypha for example are very nice books, and have some historical value, but really don't meet this requirement.

Finally yet another reason in Matthew 23:31-35 (and Luke 11:51) Jesus specifically names the prophets persecuted in the Old Testament, "From Abel to Zechariah". Why didn't he mention the Prophets of the Apocrypha? These books were written before Jesus s ministry on the Earth. The thought here is that if Jesus didn't recognize them as prophets, why should we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmccaff (talk • contribs) 18:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not a catechism class

The article reads very strangely, to a professor used to scholarly discussions of canon-making: "Thus, in the fifth century, all of Christendom had come into complete accord on the matter of the New Testament canon.[14] In the tradition of the undivided Church, the unanimous oneness of the mind of the Church established the canon of the New Testament even more firmly than an ecumenical council would have; the finalization was no longer in any doubt whatsoever in any part of Christendom." The point seems to be that something called "the unanimous oneness of the mind of the Church" established the canon better than mere mortal scholars presenting evidence in a debate could do. That seems, at the very least, like Original Research, if not outright Dogma. The entire article seems designed to prove that point. Perhaps it should be reserved to Another to "teach by authority, unlike the scribes." At least on humble Wikipedia. Profhum (talk) 18:56, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

The strangeness likely comes from the fact that historically, the Church did some things differently from other organizations, and described them, then and now, in language different from professorial tones and mere mortal scholars considering evidence. It's not dogma, but the language is not unsuitable to the topic or to the source of unanimity. The Church didn't sit down all together, there to weigh and sift and decide. Travel was difficult; there were wars (Rome had been conquered); there were language differences between east and west. The Church sat down all over the place, everywhere it was, made decisions, and by sifting came to one mind on it, and there it was. And so it became unanimous, much more powerfully than a committee or a council could ever have made it, much more directly than the First Council of Nicea, great as it was, was able to establish it directly. The latter's decisions also required at least sixty years of turmoil and dissention of similar breadth and wide consideration in places both low and high, in order to achieve any similar unanimity, but it was also that unanimity that allowed the decisions to prevail in the long term. Does that seem unscholarly? I don't see evidence for it. Evensteven (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

And which is more propaganda than fact. In reality, while overall the larger canon came to be held, partly due to Augustine's belief in a fable (Letter of Aristeas), yet scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, until it provided the first "infallible," indisputable canon - after the death of Luther. Grace and peace thru the Lord Jesus (talk) 02:24, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Merge

Shouldn't this article be merged to Development of the New Testament canon? Editor2020 (talk) 02:07, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Support merge - Epinoia (talk) 03:16, 1 April 2019 (UTC)