New Testament Canon Archives - Page 16 of 47

It’s Here! My New @Ligonier DVD Series on the Origins of the NT Canon

One of the most common questions I am asked is whether I have introductory, lay-level material on the origins of the NT canon that people can use in their churches. For small group Bible studies or Sunday School classes, most people simply won’t read Canon Revisited or any of my other books.

So, I am pleased to say that Ligonier is about to release a new DVD series where I give six introductory lectures on the origins and authority of the NT canon. My hope is that this will meet a need for churches looking to do something on canon but not knowing where to turn.

You can order the …

What about the ‘Lost’ Books of the Bible?

In modern studies of the NT canon, there is a lot of discussion (maybe even obsession!) with so-called ‘lost’ books of the Bible. So, we have recent book titles like Lost Scriptures, Forgotten Scriptures, and The Lost Bible.

In fact, scholar Philip Jenkins even wrote a whole book documenting (and critiquing) the academic community’s fascination with this theme: Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way.

So what do we with these other books of the New Testament? A few quick thoughts.

First, most of these books weren’t really ‘lost.’ The early church fathers were very much aware of these other books. Indeed, they …

Did the Church Create the Bible?

The perennial question in the debate over sola Scriptura is whether the church is over the Bible or the Bible is over the church.

The latter position is (generally speaking) a Protestant one—the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, are the only infallible rule and therefore the supreme authority over the church.

The former position (generally speaking) is a Roman Catholic one—the church decided the canon and also, through the pope, decides how these books are to be interpreted. In this way, the authority of the Bible rests on the (prior and more foundational) authority of the church.

Of course, Catholics would not word it quite this way. The Roman church …