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How Do We Know That the Bible is the Bible? (Part 2)
The question of the Bible is an important one for Christians. We believe that the Bible is God’s Word to human beings, and that everything it says is true and trustworthy. Therefore, it is important that we understand what the Bible is and how it came into out hands. While this study of Scripture is longer and more in-depth than the usual eDevotion material, I pray that it will increase your God-given faith in the Word that testifies in Jesus Christ, your Savior. As always, all comments, questions, and concerns are welcome!
The first installment of this study covered the testimony that Scripture makes about itself. Today we will look at the 39 books of the Bible that make up the Old Testament. How do we know that those 39 books (and no others) are the books that are the inspired, prophetic, and authoritative Word of God?
The Old Testament: “This is what the Lord says”
Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, is the first and final authority for Christians on the matter of the Bible. We leave it to Christ to establish for us the question of the Old Testament canon.
Several times in the New Testament, Jesus refers to “the Scriptures.” He talks about the Jews searching the Scriptures (John 5:39). He reminds them, “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). These passages wouldn’t mean much if either Jesus or the Jews weren’t sure what “Scriptures” he was talking about.
Well, what were those Scriptures? Although arranged in a slightly different order, the writings that Jesus was referring to are the same 39 books that make up our Old Testament today. We know what books were considered “the Scriptures” by the Jews of Jesus’ day, and they are the same books that today we call the Old Testament.
Jesus himself lets us know that his Old Testament is our Old Testament. In Luke 11:49-51, Jesus refers to the blood of the prophets, from Abel to Zechariah, from Genesis 4 to 2 Chronicles 24. In the Hebrew Bible, Genesis is placed first and 2 Chronicles is last ― in English, it would be like referring to all of the prophets from Abel to Malachi. (It’s interesting that in English, he is also referring to all of the prophets killed, from “A to Z.”) In this statement, Jesus is “book-ending” the Old Testament, from beginning to end.
The Hebrew Bible was divided into three parts. The first was called the Law and contained the five books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). The second was the Prophets, and consisted of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and a single scroll containing the 12 minor prophets (Hosea though Malachi). The third group was everything else, which eventually came to be known as the Writings, that contained the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and several historical books (Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles). Jesus placed his stamp of approval on this entire collection of books, and reminded us of the Christ-centeredness of the Old Testament, in Luke 24:44 when he said, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” By referring to this specific three-fold division of Law, Prophets, and Psalms (Writings), Jesus testified to the prophetic authority of the entire Old Testament.
Besides sweeping references to the entire collection of Old Testament books, Jesus also appealed to the authority of individual books. During his ministry, he cited Moses (Mark 7:10), David (Matthew 22:43-44), and Isaiah (Matthew 13:14). He also named the Bible writers Daniel (Matthew 24:15) and Jonah (Matthew 12:39), which is important because modern critics today doubt that Daniel and Jonah wrote those books. Jesus’ authority, however, overrides the skepticism of the critics.
In fact, in the New Testament, only Ezra, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon are not quoted or alluded to by apostolic writers. This shows us that the inspired writers of the New Testament recognized the same group of authoritative books that we recognize as the Old Testament today.
One other interesting point can be made about the closing, or cut-off date, of the Old Testament canon. In Malachi 4:5-6, the last verses of the Old Testament, the Lord prophesied that the next prophet that would appear on the scene in Israel would be a messenger, a forerunner, who would come to prepare the way for the Messiah. Malachi calls that forerunner “Elijah;” the New Testament identifies him as John the Baptist (Matthew 11). If there were to be no prophets between Malachi and John the Baptist, there could be no prophesy either, and therefore the Old Testament closed with Malachi, and the entire Jewish nation, waiting eagerly for “Elijah” to come. Even the apocryphal book of Maccabes (written two centuries after Malachi) recognized that there were no prophets in Israel after Malachi (1 Maccabes 9:27).
The Apocrypha: “Hidden things”
But what about the Apocrypha, the “extra” Old Testament books which one finds in Roman Catholic editions of the Bible? What are they, and where do they stand in relation to the rest of Scripture?
Although the list sometimes varies slightly, the apocryphal books are usually considered to be: Tobit, The Wisdom of Solomon, 1 and 2 Maccabes, Ecclesiasticus (or the Wisdom of Jesus Sirach), and Baruch. Other apocryphal books (or additions to canonical Old Testament books) include: The Story of Susanna, The Song of the Three Children, The Story of Bel and the Dragon, First and Second Esdras, Judith, The Epistle of Jeremiah, Additions to Esther, The Prayer of Manasseh, and The Prayer of Azariah.
These books were all written in the time after the close of the Old Testament at the death of Malachi in about 400 B. C. They were not written in Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament, and they were never accepted by the Jews as canonical. Jesus never quoted from them, and even though Jude 9 and 2 Timothy 3:8 might allude to events from apocryphal works, no New Testament writer directly refers to any event or quotation from an apocryphal work.
In short, neither the Jews of Jesus’ day, the writers of the New Testament, nor Jesus himself considered these writings to be on par with the Word of God revealed in the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible, and therefore the Christian Church has rightly rejected them as part of the canon.
Beyond that, the apocryphal books make no claim for themselves to be inspired. There is no, “This is what the Lord says” in them. Unlike the prophets of the Old Testament, the writers of the apocrypha don’t claim direct, divine revelation as the source for their words.
It is a sad, but ultimately insignificant, footnote to the development of the Bible that the Roman Catholic Church late in the 16th Century declared these writings to be equal with the rest of Scripture. No Council of the Church has the right to declare authoritative a writing that God has not; just because something is claimed as true doesn’t make it true.
Although with Luther we might admit that there is something “useful and good to read” in these books, there is no historical or theological reason to think that we might be missing something by not having them in our Bibles, and no reason to be concerned that some part of God’s Word has been “left out.” The apocrypha certainly belong to those “traditions of men” so often warned against by Jesus (Mark 7).
Next time, we’ll take a look at the 27 books that make up the New Testament.
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