The Word of God ♦ Bible Text

Bible Canonization

The Bible has two major sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament. Each major section is composed of a set of books. All these books were gathered together in a process called “canonization”.

Although many think that the church in the first centuries has chosen by its own will which books to be part of the biblical canon, actually what the church did was to discover and recognize the authors and the books that were really inspired by God. Because of the many false writings that were available at that time, the church had to distinguish between those and the ones that were truly inspired by God.

For the New Testament books, the main criterion used to recognize a book as canonical, was to have an apostolic origin. The first list belongs to Athanasius in 367 A.D. and was later officially recognized by the Church Council of Hippo in 393 A.D. and The Third Sinod in 397 A.D. at Cartagena.

For the Old Testament, the list of books recognized as canonical was ready before 150 B.C. Jesus Christ has accepted the canon as it was in His time, proving its authenticity. Also, the writings of the New Testament confirm Old Testament authors.

There are a lot of books called “apocrypha” which were not included in the biblical canon because of their historical and geographical errors, false teachings and contradictions with the inspired books.