How We Got the Bible — Canon and Transmission

A Question Worth Asking

One of the most important questions a Bible reader can ask is: how did these particular books come to be recognised as Scripture? The existence of a collection of sixty-six books called "the Bible" was not inevitable — it is the result of a long process of recognition, debate, and ultimately the Spirit's guidance of the church.

The Old Testament Canon

The Hebrew Scriptures were collected and recognised over centuries. By the time of Jesus, the core of what we call the Old Testament was well established and widely recognised by Jewish communities. Jesus and the apostles quote from these Scriptures extensively, treating them as authoritative.

The process of formal recognition culminated at the Council of Jamnia (c. AD 90), though this reflected recognition of what was already widely accepted rather than an invention of a new canon.

The Protestant Old Testament (39 books) and the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments differ on the Apocrypha — a collection of books written between the Testaments that were included in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew canon. The Reformers followed Jerome and the Hebrew canon, excluding the Apocrypha from their Scripture.

The New Testament Canon

The recognition of the New Testament books was gradual. By the late first century, the four Gospels and Paul's letters were widely read and treated as authoritative. The process of settling the full canon took until the late fourth century.

The criteria the early church used to identify canonical books included:

• **Apostolicity** — written by an apostle or someone closely connected to an apostle
• **Catholicity** — recognised and used across the widespread church
• **Orthodoxy** — consistent with the rule of faith, the core apostolic teaching
• **Inspiration** — the sense that a book carried divine authority

The canon was formally affirmed at the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397).

Transmission — Copying and Translation

For centuries before the printing press, the Bible was copied by hand. The science of textual criticism — comparing thousands of surviving manuscripts — has demonstrated remarkable accuracy in transmission. The Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered in 1947), which predate our previously oldest Hebrew manuscripts by a thousand years, showed a remarkable degree of agreement.

The Bible has been translated into more languages than any other book in history — currently some portion of Scripture exists in over 3,400 languages. The work of translation continues, ensuring that every people group can read God's Word in their own language.