Development of the canon

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Part of the series on the Bible

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The development of the canon deals with how the Bible came to be. "The word 'canon' derives from the Hebrew term qaneh and the Greek term kanon, both of which refer to a measuring rod. It designates the exclusive collection of documents in the Judeo-Christian tradition that have come to be recognized as Scripture. The Jewish canon was written in both Hebrew and Aramaic, while the Christian canon was written in Greek." [1]

Multimedia Illumination; Canonicity, by Bruce Ware (MP3) Canonicity (Real, Win), by R.C. Sproul

Contents 1 Development of the OT canon 2 Development of the NT canon 3 Resources 4 External links

Development of the OT canon

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See main page: Development of the OT canon

Development of the NT canon

The New Testament documents were not accepted as Scripture because they were in a collection, rather the Church regarded these separate documents as Scripture and accordingly gathered them together. For the first hundred years or so of the Christian faith, documents such as the letters written by Paul and the four histories of Jesus (the Gospels) had been circulated and copied throughout the churches for use in teaching. These documents soon came to be recognized as Holy Scripture, of equal importance (or more, in the eyes of some) as the Jewish Scriptures, which we refer to today as the Old Testament.

See main page: Development of the NT canon

Resources

• F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (IVP, 1988)

External links

• Canon of the Bible (Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology)
• The Bible: The Holy Canon of Scripture, by J. Hampton Keathley, III (bible.org)