THE CANONICITY OF THE BIBLE

The Canonicity of the Bible



The Canonicity of the Bible

Introduction

Throughout history, men have always been looking for something out of the natural world to satisfy their spiritual needs. Despite cultural and geographical differences, most people claim to believe in the existence of a supreme being called God. In fact, certain cultures believe in more than one being as their god and protector.  Man is naturally a dependant being who is constantly in need for a more intelligent and powerful force. Although men progress from generation to generation, they have not certainly stopped searching for this great invisible force of the universe. They study the Bible. They did their best to practice it, but it seems there was not a set of standard method.

The same way school administrators have admission standards by which a prospective student must meet before being admitted into their institution, the early church fathers, such as Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna etc., had the challenge of creating a set of standards for each book of the Bible. This set of standards that were created in order for a piece of writing to be considered as divinely inspired and to be admitted into the New Testament Canon. During this process, the early church fathers used many different mechanisms to determine the legitimacy of the writing. There were two particular basics criteria that were being used at that time: first of all a book or a piece of writing had to carry the authority of an apostle and secondly this particular piece of writing had to be recognized and accepted by the early church fathers unanimously.

In this paper, my intention is to discuss the various mechanisms or standards that were being introduced by the early church fathers in order to have a greater appreciation for the twenty-seven New Testament books call God's inspired Word.

THE BIBLE

Among all the major religions in the world today, some are more prevalent than others are.  These major religions are often associated with particular spiritual books used for guidance and religious practices. For instance, Hinduism uses Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad-Gita; Buddhism uses Triptaka and Mahayana writings; Gnosticism uses teachings of Plato and DaVinci Code; Islam uses Qur'an; Jehovah Witness use New World Translation Bible; Judaism uses Hebrew Bible; and Christianity uses Bible Canon.   

These religions are very close to each other and partly share the same book. Judaism uses only the Hebrew Bible, which is the Old Testament section of the whole Bible, as opposed to Christianity that uses the entire Bible including both the Old Testament and New Testament.

The Bible has been the most talked about and controversial book of every generation. “The word Bible was formed from a Greek term meaning books in the plural. It is, in fact, the collection books written by various authors that possesses final authority in Christian communities.”

The authority of the Bible is very important to all who accept it as the divine words of ...