Who selected the original scriptures to be included in the Bible.?

Answer 1

In the original testaments, the books were written and selected and commented upon in Toray by rabbis. These books were eventually edited heavily by the council of Nicea and incorporated into the testaments involving Jesus and the Disciples. Many possible books were left out because their origins were even more suspect than supposed first hand accounts that were written centuries after the death of Jesus.

The Catholic church has had a great hand in revising and editing the works and other churches have managed to retranslate to meet their agendas -- the "Good News" bibles of Evangelical churches are examples of glaring mistranslation to affirm their mission to convert.

Answer 2

No one person or group made the selection. The Israelites built up a body of works over time; Genesis, Exodus, the Psalms, Proverbs, etc. The books of Kings are something of a "readers digest" version of more detailed records (they refer to these repeatedly) that are now lost. Leviticus didn't appear until after their return from exile in Babylon. Daniel came much later, during the time of the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes. The Old Testament was edited repeatedly over millenia, and didn't reach its "final" form until shortly before Christ.

The New Testament was just as chaotic. In the first centuries after Christ there were numerous "gospels", "epistles", etc., each with varying degrees of accuracy and authenticity. There was no "official" church at first and manuscripts of any kind were hard to come by. So believers read whatever they had at hand. There was a great deal of copying, sharing, etc. As the church began to become more structured bishops (recognized leaders) began to decide what should be "approved" for reading in their churches. This varied from place to place and bishop to bishop. There were sharp differences in theology throughout the empire.

As the church grew and gained both more authority and more enemies, they knew they would need an "official" text to unify the body of believers. There were several attempts to create the New Testament, and some very, very harsh debate. The Council of Nicea didn't "create" the New Testament. They offered a list of works that were either "approved", "suspect" or "heresy". The Emperor Constantine, with much advice, gathered the ones he liked the most and ordered 50 copies made (an unbelievably huge number for that time.) With so many "official" copies, this version became widespread, but never universally accepted. There were still sharp divisions, especially between East and West. These were mostly resolved when the eastern empire was overrun by Moslems and the western (Roman Catholic) church was the only one left with wealth, power and authority.

There are still questions about what is "scripture". Some books are included by some churches, rejected by others. Martin Luther rejected much of the New Testament as being suspect (for some very good reasons), but by then inertia had set in. His reformation of "Scripture" didn't go very far.

Answer 3

The early church used what we have today in the Bible. There were a couple of the last books questioned by some around the turn of the first century. Most all churches use the 66 books we use today. As time went by some attempted to add several newer documents. A church council was set in 325 at Nicea to debate these newer books. All writings failed the Nicene test except the 66 we have today. The Roman Catholic church officially added the so-called Apocryphal books to their Bible at the council if Trent in the 1600's.
So to answer, it was the church fathers at the earliest, obviously led by the Holy Spirit. That decision was confirmed by the council 200 years or so later. The original canon of Scripture still stands.

Answer 4

In 313 AD Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. During the time of Constantine there were many different Christian church's throughout the Roman Empire and each church had different scriptures they taught. Constantine wanted to uniform Christianity by bringing all the churches together and have all Christian churches teach the same scripture. So in 325 AD he called together the First Council of Nicaea. At the Council of Nicaea many Bishops from across the Empire came and together they decided which scriptures would be included in the Holy Bible and which scriptures were controversial and would be left out.

Answer 5

The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in (A.D. 170). The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.


In short, Men. But they did have to stick to rules about what to include and what not. They had rules, so to speak, to stick to.

Answer 6

Constantine and Nicea had nothing to do with it. You guys have bad information. It was at the councils of Hippo and Carthage in the late fourth century under Pope St. Siricius.

BTW - the church didn't "add" any apocryphal books. Jesus and the apostles used the Greek Septuagint version of the old testament and the church retained its use from the beginning. There are even quotes from Jesus and the apostles found in the protestant version (which excludes these books for doctrinal reasons) which refer to these books. You just can't look up the reference in a protestant Bible.

Answer 7

While the New Testament canon was not formally established until 300 years after Jesus lived, the Council at Nice didn't just sit around and pull documents out of a hat.

The books the Council selected for inclusion actually had *already* informally been accepted as canon (in practice) for a century or two by the general body of believers.

The church had already had to deal with a number of disagreements on theology, such as gnosticism (the idea that Jesus was not really physically human, that spirit was all that mattered, and that knowledge was the key to salvation) back by 80-100 AD.

Deciding which teachings were heretical and which seemed to follow the teachings of Jesus was a constant, long-term process started by people who lived close to Jesus' time (as close as eye-witness as you could get, I suppose).

Some documents were discarded by those early Christians, others were considered accurate and were kept.

This informal selectio process went on for three hundred years (longer than the U.S. has been officially a nation!) before finally the Council at Nice sat down and said, "Okay, let's make official what we already all accept as true, and get it done with."

As far as your Old Testament goes, it had already long codified by the time Jesus was born. There was a written Torah (plus other documents), as well as an oral Torah (i.e., practical steps for living, so as to apply the teachings of the Torah).

Note that Israel began by necessity (nomadic life isn't condusive to writing a great deal) as an oral people, so their memory skill was highly developed. The text(s) for the beginnings of the OT was passed down from person to person until finally written down several hundred years before Jesus.

Answer 8

The Catholic Church officially decided the canon of the Bible with the Councils of Hippo in AD 393 and Carthage, AD 397. It approved 46 books for the Old Testament.

Answer 9

The answers concerning the Council of Nicaea are correct. Constantine organized a group to prune out the Bible and choose books concerning mainly the Torah and Jesus's divinity.

Answer 10

the Council of Nice, set up by the Roman Empire in 300 AD