I've referred to the conclusion in this article quite a few times in previous articles, but I think it's important to show how I arrived at the conclusion. There have been different approaches used in developing the canon, and two of them are based on human desires, while the third one is based on revelation by the Holy Spirit. Of course, there is overlap in all three, since none of us perfectly knows God's will. People didn't decide what books...
Tag: Michael J. Kruger
How were the Canonical and Non-Canonical Books Categorized?
This article in my series about the Biblical Canon will be short, although the footnotes are extensive. In the first few hundred years after Jesus's resurrection, the church was trying to understand which books were in the canon. God made the canon, but it was still up to the church to recognize which books were appropriate for use.
Have you ever walked into a crowded room and seen some faces which are vaguely familiar, but you can't remember the...
What are the Stages of Revelation of the Canon?
What do the words Scripture and Canon mean? In modern times, some people have defined the word Scripture to mean books inspired by God, while defining Canon as a list of scripture which can not change. With these definitions, the scriptures existed early in the church, but the canon took a long time to form. Did the early church have a canon? Was the canon formed in the fourth or fifth century, as some people claim? The Catholic Church...
Why Create a Written Canon? Part 2
The Biblical Canon contains all the scripture "...breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness...." (2 Timothy 3:16 ESV). Last week I wrote Why Create a Written Canon? Part 1, about heresies the early church was combating. However, that's not the main reason the canon was formed. If the canon had been created to fight heresies, that would make the canon reactive, an attempt to fix...