How did we get our
Bible?
The Bible we read today
came to us by way
of a complex,
messy — and
very human — process
 by John Carroll
Not long ago the Gospel of Judas seized headlines, with its depiction of Judas as a heroic disciple rather than a betrayer. Occasionally other books not included in our Bible have made a similar splash, often accompanied by sensational claims about their importance.
The earliest Christians read, wrote and treasured dozens of writings. Why does the Bible now read by Christians not include all of these books? How did we get our Bible?
Text on scrolls from the 16th or early 17th century. Photo © istockphoto.com/ Amanda Rohde.The earliest Christians read the Jewish Scriptures as their sacred texts. They also preserved in oral form the traditions of Jesus’ teaching and public ministry, which carried special authority for them. With the emerging need for reliable instructional resources for increasingly dispersed congregations, documents were written, preserved, copied, shared and eventually gathered into collections.
The Pharisee-turned-apostle Paul adapted the letter form to nurture his house churches. Then collections of Jesus’ teachings, as well as stories of his actions, began to take shape. In the aftermath of the second Temple’s destruction by Roman armies in the year 70, oral traditions became written narratives about Jesus’ career.
First Mark appeared, then Matthew and Luke (each employing Mark as a source and supplementing it with other materials, mostly sayings of Jesus), and finally John. Luke authored a sequel narrative, chronicling the early decades of the church’s mission (Acts of the Apostles). And the visionary John, from political exile, spoke to the challenge of faith confronting the reality of Roman power (Revelation).
Each of these books articulated Christian conviction and shaped Christian living for a particular community (or communities), and for a particular time. But people of faith living in other places and times also found them to be useful. Churches scattered around the Mediterranean basin made multiple copies to use in worship and teaching.
By the late second century Christians especially revered the four Gospels and 13 of Paul’s letters, alongside the Old Testament, as authoritative sources for Christian faith. But many other writings of similar genre had also surfaced: more than a dozen “gospels,” action narratives associated with various of Jesus’ early followers (John, Andrew, Paul, Thomas), and a growing body of letters. Some of these letters, like one to the Laodiceans and a “third” to Corinthians, were attributed to Paul; others were penned by Christian leaders like Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp.
Instruction manuals for church organization and discipline (the Didache, for example) and visionary “apocalypses,” one of them bearing Peter’s name, also found receptive audiences. But these never enjoyed the wide acceptance of the books that ultimately came to be included in the New Testament.
As the number and diversity of early Christian writings grew, defining a biblical canon inevitably became a messy, untidy process, one that stretched over several centuries. It meant affirmation of some texts and exclusion of others. This boundary setting was guided by several concerns:
- How widely was the writing known and used?
- Did it come from the early period of the church’s life, or was it more recent?
- Did the book advocate deviant teaching? Was it favored by groups holding such beliefs?
- Did the writing present ideas that were consistent with the church’s emerging sense of its governing convictions or “rule of faith”? (For example, the apocalypse supposedly revealed to Peter was excluded because it pictures Jesus’ suffering and death as an illusion.)
Photo © istockphoto.com/ Gisele.In shaping the biblical canon the church sought to crystallize its beliefs and practices and forge its identity in a dominant culture defined by different values, ideas and practices. The process also became part of a struggle for power and influence by various groups and leaders.
In the second and third centuries various influential teachers appealed to written texts that supported their views. Marcion based his teaching on an edited version of just one gospel (Luke) and 10 letters of Paul, and rejected the Old Testament entirely. A group called Montanists celebrated the revival of the prophetic Spirit, appealing to the image of Paraclete (“advocate” or “comforter”) from John’s Gospel as warrant for their “up-to-date” prophecies.
Many Gnostic Christians esteemed Paul’s letters. They wrote treatises supporting the Gnostic conviction that “salvation” was a matter of special individual insight (gnosis or “knowledge”) and meant escape from a corrupt world. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, recast traditional sayings of Jesus to advocate a life disengaged from this world. The Gospel of Mary privileged special revelation to Mary (Magdalene), challenging an emerging system of church leaders who derived their authority from a connection to Peter and the circle of apostles.
The early church faced a dilemma when combating such variations on Christian belief and practice. Should it discard all of the writings treasured by those groups? Or could some, such as John’s Gospel and letters of Paul, be interpreted differently and so reclaimed?
In the year 303 the emperor Diocletian directed that Christian sacred writings be destroyed. This kind of sporadic but intense persecution forced Christians to ask themselves: “Which writings would we be willing to die for?” It also caused some to question the authority of the book of Hebrews, which seemed to rule out any hope of a second chance for Christians who had saved their lives by denying their faith (Hebrews 6:4–6).
A dramatic change in Christian fortunes followed the conversion of the emperor Constantine. Keenly interested in unifying the empire with the help of his adopted religion, Constantine pressed for an end to divisive doctrinal disputes, calling for the council that met at Nicea in 325. Six years later he directed that 50 copies of the Bible be produced for use in Constantinople. This implicitly forced an agreement on the biblical canon, while at the same time supporting Constantine’s project of imperial consolidation.
What should today’s church do with the writings the early church left behind? We should remember that what is sometimes advertised as a discovery of “new truth” about Jesus or early Christianity (for example, the Gospel of Judas, in which Judas was not a betrayer but the most loyal disciple) often turns out to be a text or tradition with which scholars have long been familiar. The strange and unfamiliar, even the exotic, isn’t always (or often) better than the more familiar.
It is worth remembering also that the process of canon definition was not only about spiritual values. It was an untidy, political process in which some voices were pushed to the margins and silenced. Not every helpful theological conviction or religious practice is included in the Bible. At the same time, as a set of culturally shaped human documents, the Bible contains some problematic ideas and counsel. For example, cultural accommodation placed restrictions on women’s teaching authority in 1 Timothy 2:8–15 and shaped the roles of master and slave in the household codes of Colossians 3:18–4:1 and Ephesians 5:21–6:9.
How, then, should we live with the result? Since these texts are all culturally located and shaped, relevant words for particular moments and places, the church today listens with reverent, attentive but also critical ear. To borrow imagery from the seer John of Patmos (in Revelation 2–3), what is the Spirit saying through these texts to the church and its witness in the world in our place and time? What — or rather who — is the divine Word whom we encounter, both comforting and challenging us, in these human words, and who claims our deepest commitment and service?
The Bible comes to us by way of a complex, and very human, historical process. Yet these faith-forming texts continue to nourish, instruct and energize those who read them. For Christians the Bible is the primary, authoritative basis for belief and practice. Like Jews, Christians find in Scripture an identity-shaping story that points to a people’s history with God. The divine purposes and ways are revealed in writings of diverse genres (poetry, history, parables, letters and more). The authors crafted their material with diverse aims and theological perspectives. As a result, the Bible we read today expresses considerable variety of belief and practice.
Ultimately, though, authority for shaping Christian faith and life in the world resides not in the book(s), but in the God who is encountered there.
—John T. Carroll is professor of New Testament and academic dean at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond, Va.
Milestones
(in canon formation)
A.D. 50 Earliest New Testament writing (1 Thessalonians)
70–75 Earliest Gospel (Mark)
90–100 Canon of Jewish (Old Testament) scriptures nears final form
303 Edict of Roman emperor Diocletian requires destruction of Christian sacred writings
325 Constantine, first Christian Roman emperor, calls for the first Christian council at Nicea
331 Constantine orders preparation of copies of complete Bible for Constantinople
367 Letter of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, describes 27-book New Testament canon still in use today
397 3rd Synod of Carthage confirms this same 27-book New Testament canon
382–405 Jerome produces the Vulgate, a revised Latin translation of the Bible based on Hebrew and Greek texts
1384 First English translation of Bible by John Wycliffe
1534 Martin Luther’s German translation of Bible
1546 Council of Trent defines biblical canon (including deutero-canonical writings) as necessary article of faith for Roman Catholics
1611 King James Version published
some dates approximate
Why is my Bible different from yours?
Take a look inside the Bibles used by your non-Protestant friends, and you’ll notice some differences in the books included:
Photo © istockphoto.com/ Arpad BenedekThe Jewish Bible — Also called the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible includes the Torah (five books of Moses), Nevi’im (prophets, including both historical and prophetic books) and Kethuvim (writings, including Psalms and wisdom books).
Photo © istockphoto.com/ Gord HorneThe Protestant Bible — The Old Testament canon holds the same (39) writings as the Jewish Bible, though arranged and counted differently. These are all texts originally composed in Hebrew, except for a few chapters (primarily in Daniel and Ezra) written in Aramaic. The New Testament (as agreed upon by virtually all Christian groups) contains 27 books, originally composed in Greek: the four Gospels, a narrative of the earliest church in mission (the Acts of the Apostles), a collection of letters attributed to Paul (13) and other authors (8), and the book of Revelation.
Photo © istockphoto.com/ Cliff ParnellThe Roman Catholic Bible — Catholics add to their canon a number of deutero-canonical works, a “second set” of authoritative texts that is similar though not identical to what Protestants call the “Old Testament Apocrypha.” These include such narratives as Tobit and two books of the Maccabees, as well as wisdom books associated with Solomon and Sirach, which found a place in Greek-language collections of Jewish texts.
Photo © istockphoto.com/ M KucovaThe Greek Orthodox Bible — Its canon is even more expansive, adding to those books included in the Roman Catholic Bible Psalm 151 and 3 and 4 Maccabees.
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