Iron Works Foundations

What is Scripture? Lesson 5: Canon and Proof of Divine Authorship

I. Definition of Canon:

A. The word “canon” (Greek kanon) means a measuring rod or norm.

B. “[The bibles] sixty-six books together function as the supreme measuring rod or authority for the church.” - Sproul

C. "The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books in the Bible." - Grudem

I. OT canon: Firmly established in ancient history. “Witnesses to the number and structure of the books of the canon is confirmed by many independent sources…" – William Webster

1. Jesus/NT: all major divisions mentioned (Lk 24:44)2. Josephus (37-100 AD): Roman-Jewish historian. Lists all the books of our OT as Scriptures3. The Early Church Fathers4. The Rabbinical Literature

II. Apocrypha: None of these works ever thought as Scripture by any ancient source.

III. NT canon: Took shape over time. A. 1st 100 yrs after Jesus, Gospels/apostles

writings circulated as Scripture.

1. Apostles commissioned (Jn 14:26, Eph 2:20)

2. 2 Pet 3:16 "…There are some things in [Paul's letters] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

3. 1 Tim 5:18 "For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” (Luk 10:7; Lk 1:1-3)

B. Need for list comes due to Marcion:

1. Held Gnostic ideas formed his own canon.

2. 140AD: Got rid of OT, produced edited version of NT that eliminated positive linkages b/t Jesus and Yahweh, and some of Paul’s writings.

3. Church responded by excommunicating Marcion in 144AD.

4. Muratorian Fragment: 175 AD.Unknown author: 20 NT books listed.Excluded: Hebrews, 2 Pet, 2 & 3 John, Jude, Rev.

C. Other excluded works:

1. Over 2,000 Gnostic writings. Rejected outright.

2. Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, 1st Clement: convey they knew they were sub-apostolic.

D. Criteria for inclusion in Canon:

1. Apostolic origin: written by an apostle or under sanction of an apostle (ex: Mark, Luke, Acts)

2. Reception by early church: quoted authoritatively early on.

3. Compatibility of doctrine

E. Final Recognition of the NT Canon

1. 367AD: Athanasius lists 27 NT books

2. Councils of Hippo Regius in 393, and Carthage in 397 approve 27 books of NT.

IV. Who decides the canon?

A. God does, not the church. The church merely recognizes what is clearly His Word.

B. God in His providence ensures we have Canon.

C. The church discovers, not determines canon.

"The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by His work of creation, and similarly He gave us the New Testament canon, by inspiring the individual books that make it up." - JI Packer

Introduction

Proof of Divine Authorship:How do we know the Bible is

the inerrant Word of God?

I. WCF 1.5 We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God…

A. Testimony of the church: Early church post Jesus. Could include God's people from the time God gave His written Word Moses--writings of NT: Moses, David, the prophets, the apostles, and most importantly, Jesus, testify that the Scriptures are Word of God.

B. The heavenliness of the matter: No other writing focuses us more on spiritual realities and fleshes out who God is. No other writing does justice to the nature of God/full range of God's attributes w/o contradiction: transcendence and immanence, holiness and love, justice and mercy, etc.

C. The efficacy of the doctrine: 1. No other work has impacted man as the Bible.

"…read by more people and published in more languages than any other book in history."

2. Heb 4:12

D. The majesty of the style: it is literary masterpiece of every type of genre telling one consistent story.

E. The consent of all the parts: From Gen–Rev it tells one consistent story about God/man's salvation. This despite being written over span of 1,600 yrs by 40 different authors from every walk of life and 3 different Continents.

F. The scope of the whole (give all glory to God): Like nothing else relentlessly God-centered/teaches man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

G. The full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation: Nothing else shows us all that was necessary for man' salvation through Christ alone.

1. Predictive Prophecy: Only Bible contains precise predictions of future events. Jesus fulfills over 300 prophecies related to Messiah.

2. Miracles: Supernatural events testifying to God's power, truth of His Word.

H. Many other incomparable excellencies: plotlines, poetry, wisdom, honest appraisal of characters, etc.

I. The entire perfection thereof: 2 Tim 3:16

II. Manuscript Authority

A. Inerrancy refers only to the original auto-graphs, not manuscript (ms) copies.

B. MS copies contain differences (word order) and spelling mistakes, etc.

1. Rarely changes meaning of a text. No doctrine is affected.

2. Variants/mistakes easy to identify, original reading thus able to be discerned.

C. Original text can be preserved in ms copies: The more mss = better ability to access original text:

"Providentially, when it comes to the quantity ofmanuscripts, the NT is in a class all its own…we possess more than 5,500 manuscripts of the NT Greek alone. No other document from ancienthistory even comes close.: - Dr. Michael Kruger

Manuscript Comparison

Date Earliest Author Written Copy # Copies Time Gap

Aristotle 343BC 900AD 5 1,250 yrsPlato 400BC 900AD 7 1,300 yrsGallic Wars 100-44BC 900AD 10 1,000 yrs(Caesar)

NT 50-100AD 114-325AD 5,500 50-300 yrs

D. Original text, not original autograph is needed. This is preserved through the abundance of manuscripts we possess.

E. Early Church Fathers (95-400 AD): “Even if we lost all the Greek manuscriptsand early translations, we could still repro-duce the contents of the NT from the…quotations in commentaries, sermons,letters, and so forth from the early church fathers.”– Bruce Metzger

Thoughts/questions?

E. How do we know this is God's Word? 1. WWJV2. Only the Holy Spirit gives confirmation:

WCF 1.5 cont'd: "…yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts."