Let The Bible Speak



The Old Testament Canon

We continue this week in answering questions from an email correspondent. Last week, we answered the question: “How do you know that the Bible is God’s inspired Word?” This week we look at the question: “How do you know the correct books are in the Bible?” and “Where in the Bible does it tell us what books are supposed to be in the Bible?”

Let me remind you that the Holy Spirit wrote, not to elders or evangelists, but Christians in general in 1 Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…” As a Christian, I have this responsibility, but if you are a disciple of Christ, so do you! We need to remember that Judgment Day will be an intensely personal matter. There will be no lawyers, preachers, pastors, priests, or parents to stand in and defend us. The Bible teaches in Romans 14:12, “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.”

The purpose of today’s study is to lay the groundwork in convincing you or in reinforcing your present conviction that this book of books, God’s divinely inspired library of sixty-six books--and no other books--should be treated as “All Scripture…” The technical term used in this discussion is the canon of Scripture. 

In his book, Evidences of Christianity, J. W. McGarvey writes:

The word canon is the Greek word κανών anglicized, and means a rule. Paul employs the original term in Galatians 6:16, and it continued in use among the Greek writers of the early church. Applied to the Scriptures, it represents them as the rule of faith and practice. The Canon is the whole Bible, and a book is said to be canonical when it is entitled to a place in this Canon….

Geisler and Nix explain that “Inspiration indicates how the Bible received its authority, whereas canonization tells how the Bible received its acceptance.” They also write that “God is the source of canonicity. A book is canonical because it is inspired, and it is inspired because God moved in and through the men who wrote it” (General Introduction, 277). Put another way, man does not determine what books or letters belong in the canon as a book of the Bible. Rather, God determines its canonicity by inspiring holy men to write the book or letter (2 Peter 1:21) and man later recognizes which books God has inspired and collects them into one whole we call the Bible. 

We explore the question, “How do you know you have the biblical canon right?” or “How do you know the correct books are in the Bible?” …………….

One proper way to establish that a book belongs in the Bible is by examining the contents of that book, what that book says about itself and what other Bible characters, starting with Jesus and the apostles, say about that book.

Harry Rimmer in his book, Internal Evidence of Inspiration, refers to his response to the opening argument in a debate on the authority and inspiration of the Bible in Birmingham, AL. 

His atheist opponent opened by saying:

Rimmer is going to try to prove the inspiration of the Bible by referring to the Bible itself. In anticipation of this procedure...I ...object. The Bible is the book under question and the subject of our investigation. Therefore, you cannot prove the Bible by appealing to the Bible. The argument and evidence must be based upon and derived from external sources. I demand that my opponent shall not refer to the contents of the Bible in seeking to prove its inspiration! The disputed book cannot be appealed to as evidence, as it would thus be testifying in its own behalf. 

His supporters cheered, but were deflated upon hearing  Rimmer’s reply:

Our eminent opponent has propounded a unique and peculiar proposition in his opening remarks. He states that we cannot test the Bible by the Bible as such would be contrary to acceptable procedure. We are at a loss to understand the basis of such alleged reasoning!

Following his own suggested procedure, we can imagine our opponent being thrilled by the discovery of an outcropping of quartz on the hillside of some farm that he had recently purchased. Detecting the yellow glint of what seemed to be a precious metal in that outcropping, our opponent would hasten to the assayer and say, “I have reason to believe that there is gold on my farm.” The assayer would, of course, reply, “Bring me a specimen of the rock and I will [examine it] and tell you if it has any value.” 

At once our shrewd opponent would reply, “You can’t test a thing by the thing itself! You take a brick out of the wall of this building, [examine it] and tell me if there is gold on my farm.”

Or let us suppose that our opponent had reason to believe that some enemy had put potassium cyanide in his sugar bowl. He would hasten to the chemist and say, “I believe an attempt has been made to poison me.”

Describing the nature of his suspicion, he would be chagrined to have the ignorant chemist say to him, “Bring me the sugar bowl and I will analyze its contents and give you a scientific opinion.” 

At once our opponent would reply, “Oh, no! You can’t prove a thing by the thing itself! You take the salt [shaker] off your kitchen shelf, analyze its contents and tell me if there is cyanide in my sugar bowl.” 

In a similar way, one effectively shows that a book is the inspired word of God by examining its contents. In our previous study, we demonstrated seven forms of evidence that the Holy Scriptures are inspired: 1) the cohesiveness of the canon; 2) the indestructibility of Scripture; 3) the providential preservation and proliferation of manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations from early church writers; 4) the fulfillment of prophecies; 5) the scientific foreknowledge found in Scripture; 6) historicity of the Bible; and, 7) the transforming power of the Holy Scriptures.

Notice the photo titled “Holy infographics: the Bible Visualized” by The Guardian that colorfully illustrates how interconnected are the sixty-six books of the Bible. Keep in mind that the 39 books of the Old Testament were written over a span of about 1100 years and the books of the New Testament were written over a span of about 40 years, but separated from Malachi, the last Old Testament book written by well over four hundred years. Although the Old and New Testaments were written by 40 men across the period of 1500 years, these book display a phenomenal unity that can only be explained by the guidance of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

“This is about how the bible speaks to itself - or the textual cross-references within it. The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate between white and light gray and the length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect. Photograph: Christoph Römhild and Chris Harrison



Josh McDowell makes a critical clarification:

One thing to keep in mind is that the church did not create the canon or books included in what we call Scripture. Instead, the church recognized the books that were inspired from their inception. They were inspired by God when written. (Ready Defense, 34)

Roman Catholic apologists claim that the Roman Catholic Church gave the world the Bible. No. They can no more make that claim than could Pharaoh claim to have given Moses to the Hebrews. God, in His amazing Providence, protected the Scriptures in a similar way that He protected Moses--in the one place that stood to suffer the most in allowing each of them to exist. As we’ll notice in future studies, Moses confronted the illegitimacy of Pharaoh’s rule over the people of God, so the Holy Scriptures confront the illegitimacy of the pope’s claim to rule over the people of God.

As is often the case with the most important issues in life, Jesus is the answer to the issue of determining canonicity. Geisler and Nix write:

...Christ is the key to the inspiration and canonization of the Scriptures. It was He who confirmed the inspiration of the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament; and it was He who promised that the Holy Spirit would direct the apostles into all truth. The fulfillment of that promise resulted in the writing and collection of the New Testament.

Dozens of times in the gospel accounts, we find Jesus saying, “It is written” and “Have you not read” to support a divine truth, refer to a Messianic prophecy, or to refute a religious error. He points similarly to the Scriptures on a number occasions, clearly referring to what He considered to be the official books of the Old Testament. He made it clear that the way to know the truth on a religious subject was to look to the Scriptures not to what some eminent rabbi or sanhedrin council had said in some official capacity. For instance, He said in Matthew 22:29, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. In frequently quoting and alluding to Scripture, He supports the legitimacy of many books of the Old Testament canon.

He refers to Micah 5:2 in Matthew 2:5-6, “So they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:   6"But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel."

Jesus refers to Deuteronomy 8:3 when He says in Matthew 4:4, “But He answered and said, "It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."'

In Matthew 9:13, Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 when He says, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

We find an allusion to Numbers 27:17 in Matthew 9:36 when Jesus “saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.”

Jesus points back to Malachi 3:1 when He says in Matthew 11:10, “For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.'”

Jesus validated the authenticity of the book of Jonah in Matthew 12:40, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 when He says in Matthew 19:4-5, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning "made them male and female,'

Jesus quotes Exodus 20:13 in Mathew 19:18, "You shall not murder,' "You shall not commit adultery,' "You shall not steal,' "You shall not bear false witness,' 19"Honor your father and your mother…”

Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18 in Matthew 19:19, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

When Jesus says in Matthew 21:13, "It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a ‘den of thieves,’" He clearly alludes to Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.

Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22 in Matthew 21:42, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone.’” 

In Matthew 26:24, Jesus says, “The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born." Here He refers to Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Daniel 9:26.

Jesus references Zechariah 13:7 when He says in Matthew 26:31, “...for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'”

In the gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus quotes or alludes to fourteen Old Testament books. When all the gospel accounts are considered, Jesus quotes from twenty-four Old Testament books. Jesus and the New Testament writers together quote from thirty four Old Testament books. 

In addition, Jesus refers to the law and the prophets repeatedly to refer to the generally acknowledged canon of the Jews. For instance, He says in Matthew 22:40 about loving God and loving one’s neighbor, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." In John 1:45, the Holy Spirit informs us that “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’"

Jesus uses even greater specificity when He says in Luke 24:44, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." The Jews, of course, do not accept the New Testament but what we call the Old Testament they call the Tanakh. The Tanakh is an acronym from the Hebrew letters of its three components: Ta for Torah, Na for Nevi'im and K for Ketuvim--Tanakh! The Torah, of course, refers to the first five books of the Old Testament. Navi means prophets and refers to 21 books. The Ketuvim or writings refer to 13 additional books. The longest book in this list with 150 chapters is the Psalms. This explains why the writings section is sometimes referred to as the Psalms. The five books of the Torah plus the twenty-one books of the Navi or prophets plus the thirteen books of the Ketuvim, writings, or psalms equal the 39 books of the Old Testament that Jesus endorsed in Luke 24:44. 

These books of the Jewish Bible exclude the Apocrypha that the Roman Catholic Church claims are canonical.  This fact is extremely important since the Spirit teaches in Romans 3:1-2 that the Word of God was entrusted to the Jews. The Jews rejected the apocryphal books of the Old Testament age found in Catholic Bibles.

Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian and younger contemporary of the apostles, wrote: 

For we have not myriads of books, discordant and conflicting, but only twenty two books, containing the history of all time, which are justly believed to be divine. Of these, five belong to Moses...From the death of Moses until the reign of Artaxerxes, who was king of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets after Moses wrote in thirteen books the events of their own times; the remaining four books contain hymns to God and practical duties to men. It is true our history has been written since Artaxerxes, very particularly, but has not been esteemed of like authority with the former by our forefathers because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time. And how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do, for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them, but it is become natural for all Jews, immediately from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, to die for them. 

Harvey Everest adds in the Divine Demonstration:

It is well known that the twenty-two books endorsed by Josephus are the same as our thirty-nine, since he reckoned the minor prophets as one book, Judges and Ruth as one, the two books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, as one each, Ezra and Nehemiah as one, and Jeremiah and Lamentations as one….[T]his decisive testimony comes from the times of Christ and the apostles.

Philo, the learned Jew of Alexandria, who was born 20 B.C., quotes the books of our Old Testament copiously, and none others, as sacred Scriptures.

The Syriac Version, called the Peshito, contains both the Old and the New Testaments. This was made about 150 AD. This was a translation from the original Hebrew, and the canon of the Old Testament was the same then as now.

Christ and the Apostles, who quote the Scriptures so often and so copiously, quoted our present books of the Old Testament and none others. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quote from the apocryphal books. 

While ALL of our NEW Testament books were recognized as canonical and authoritative by early church writers Jerome, Augustine, Athanasius, and by church councils at Hippo and Carthage at the end of the fourth century, it took about eleven hundred and fifty years for the Roman Catholic Church to issue an official proclamation regarding the Apocrypha at the Council of Trent.

We’re out of time, but we continue this fascinating investigation next week, Lord willing.

Thank you for watching Let the Bible Speak. We pray you have heard God speak to you through His word. Call us for a free copy of 1262, “The Old Testament Canon” or The Truth Frees Bible study course at no charge. Visit to watch video, hear audio, or read transcripts of the program. On behalf of the congregations listed shortly, we echo the sentiment of the apostle Paul when he wrote in Romans 16:16, “the churches of Christ salute you.” Until next week, goodbye and may God bless you.

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