How the Canon of the Bible Was Settled by K. C. RUSSELL

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 30, 1915

How the Canon of the Bible Was Settled

By K. C. RUSSELL

K. C. RUSSELL

ONE of the arguments employed by infidels against the validity of the Bible is the manner employed in deciding upon the writings that should constitute the canon of the Bible.

The question as to how the canon of the Bible was settled is very plainly set forth in the following from a work entitled “All About the Bible,” by Sidney Collett:—

“As to how the canon of the Bible was settled, it may be very interesting to mention that, while it is quite impossible to fix any exact date, yet it seems clear the canon of the Old Testament was generally recognized as settled somewhere between the days of Ezra and Christ. According to Dr. Jacob’s Bible Chronology, Ezra arranged all the books of the Old Testament in order about 457 B. C., except Nehemiah and Malachi, whose prophecies were written later. Josephus and other heathen historians witness to this fact.”

“As, however, the whole of the Old Testament was translated into Greek more than two centuries before Christ (see Septuagint), the canon must have been settled before then.”

“That of the New Testament does not appear to have been fully and finally recognized as settled until two or three centuries after Christ. In any case, in A. D. 397 the Council of Carthage published a list of books which were then acknowledged as genuine. That list contained all the writings of the New Testament without exception as we have them now, although many of the books were acknowledged as canonical long before that date.”

“How, then, did the inspired writings come to be recognized as the Scriptures of God, and to hold, as they do today, an absolutely unique place among all the other writings on the face of the earth?”

“Some of the books, especially the Pentateuch,—i. e., the first five books of Moses, Genesis to Deuteronomy,—were from the first regarded by the Jews as the very utterances of Jehovah, their divine origin and authorship having never at any time been questioned. Indeed, these books of Moses hold to this day a higher place in the minds of Jews than any other part of Scripture; so much so, that every Jewish synagogue throughout the world has at least two or three copies of the Pentateuch, although in many cases they do not possess any other parts of the Old Testament. The Samaritans actually reject everything but the Pentateuch.”

“With some of the other books, however, it was different; that is, their true character was not at once discerned. All, however, in the course of time were ultimately recognized as having come from God; and, although they have been collected and arranged in their present form by human hands, their selection from amongst all other literature was not left to the caprice of any man or body of men, whether church or council. Indeed, this was the fatal mistake made then, at the Council of Trent (in 1545-63)—which, by the way, was practically a Roman Catholic Council, being presided over and controlled by the Pope—when they decided that the fourteen uninspired books of the Apocrypha should be included in the canon of Scripture. But any child can see that that decision cannot really alter the true character of those uninspired books, which were written nearly two thousand years previously, any more than spurious metal can be converted into gold by being hall-marked! As Luther truly said, ‘The church cannot give more force or authority to a book than it has in itself. A council cannot make that to be Scripture which in its own nature is not Scripture!’”

How, then, was this all-important matter settled? It was decided by the internal testimony and intrinsic value of the writings themselves, just as the true character of a tree, though questioned, and even vehemently denied, for a time in the dead months of winter, will, nevertheless, soon be established beyond all doubt, not on the authority of some expert gardener or association of gardeners, but by its own unanswerable evidence in the flower and fruit it bears.

So with the books which form the canon of Scripture. It seems to have been the custom for the inspired writers to deliver their writings to the priests to be placed by the side of the law for safe keeping. Deut. 31:9. Josephus tells us that this practice was always followed, copies being made for personal use by kings and others. Deut. 17:18.

But when first these sacred utterances were made and put in writing, they were in some cases recognized as the “word of the Lord” by only “the poor of the flock” (Zech. 11:11), while by others they were often indignantly repudiated, and the writers themselves were imprisoned and slain. Jer. 36:5, 23, 24.

But sooner or later the tree was known by its fruit; and those very writings which were at first rejected, became in course of time honored and revered, until every part of the true Word of God, which is declared to be “living and powerful” (Heb. 4:12), asserted its own authority. Though written by man, it came to be recognized as the voice of God; and has ever since been regarded as such, in the case of the Old Testament by the Jews, and in the case of the Old and the New by the whole Christian Church.

And the very fact that those other books have been allowed to pass so completely away is sufficient proof in itself that they never were intended to be included in the canon of Sacred Scriptures; for had they ever formed a part of the true Word of the Lord, they must in their very nature have remained to this day, since it is written, “The word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. . . . The word of the Lord endureth forever.” 1 Peter 1:23, 25.

But instead of abiding forever, what has happened to them? They served their little day and generation, and then, like their authors, fell asleep and saw corruption. The fire that is to try every man’s work, of what sort it is (1 Cor. 3:13), has in a sense tried all those writings; and what has been the result? In comparison with the Scriptures they have proved but dross, and hence, like all other dross, they have perished; while those books that form the canon of Scripture, tried by the same process, have proved themselves to be as silver, tried in a furnace; hence they have not perished, but are “purified seven times.” Ps. 12:6.

As Dr. George Smith, of Trinity College, Dublin, has said, the Scriptures “by their own weight . . . crushed all rivals out of existence.”

So the removing, as it were, of those lost books is perfectly natural—“as of things that are made, that those things [like the Scriptures of God] which cannot be shaken may remain.” Heb. 12:27.

Boston, Mass.