Who compiled the books of the New Testament? Who determined whether these books are authoritative or not?

Question

Whoever or whichever institution recognized the books we now have in the New Testament as inspired - canonical - deserves recognition as the authority in interpreting these books. When the Protestant Revolt (Reformation, as some would have it) took place, the Catholic Church had long recognized these books. Unwittingly therefore, Protestants and fundamenalists implicitly admit the authority of the Catholic Church. Please comment.

Answer 1

Search for "New Testament CANON."

For the person that claimed it was WRITTEN 300 years AFTER JESUS, Explain the "Rylands fragment of John" which is dated in the first half of the second century.

It WAS compiled by several men independently, then the "official" canon was set by a conference of church leaders early in the 4th century.

It is getting to be an old source, but you should be able to find "The Books and the Parchments" by F. F. Bruce in lots of libraries. Also look for an author named Frederick Kenyon, I can't remember his title, but his work figures prominently in the bibliographies of many books on the subject.

The "Muratorian Canon" is an early list of New Testament books with summary information which is dated around 170, about a century and a half BEFORE the liberal theologians' claim of 4th century authorship. http://www.bible-researcher.com/muratorian.html is a translation of that document.

MOST of the documents rejected were considered to have been written MUCH LATER than the canonical books... Persons studying these things in the 4th century were probably able to determine with a high degree of accuracy the RELATIVE AGE of the documents... The older members of the group knew how prior generations had considered them, or if they did not know of them. Lots of pseudopigrapha, or "false author" books were written during the second century by Gnostics who were trying to get their perversion of the Gospel accepted. They routinely forged the name of some prominent early Christian to the document to further that end, hence the description.

The early Christians copied everything they could get their hands on, so there were lots of manuscripts available to those who were involved in COMPILING the New Testament.

Since catholicism figures prominently in your additional info, you should be aware that the deuterocanonical books were added to the LXX when it was translated. The Jews NEVER considered these works as authoritative. -- The Septuagint was NOT translated FOR Jews, but for the library at Alexandria. The reformers merely returned the OT canon to what was ACCEPTED during Jesus' lifetime.

CLEARLY, Martin Luther's INTENT was to FIX the BROKEN catholic system.

Answer 2

The books to be included in the bible were chosen by various councils over the last 2,000 years, at least in the New Testament. The Old Testament, the Tenakh, was established before Jesus was born. There are many reasons why certain books are not included. For example, the Book of Mary is a more recent discovery and an unreliable one. We have no way of knowing if some nutcase thought she was Mary 300 years after Mary even lived and wrote it. In the case of books like that they are compared to the current books for similarities. Differences don't mean that they aren't real, but no similarities can. Other books, such as the 1 & 2 Macabees are included in the Catholic Bible (as well as some Orthodox denominations) in a section between the Testaments called the Apocypha. Technically the word apocrypha means anything that falls outside the canon (or estalbished Testaments), but the official Apocropha only includes a handful of them.

Answer 3

Hi and Good Morning....For over two hundred years, the books of the New Testament had been disputed by the church before actually being included. Many 'other' books had been considered for the New Testament but unfortunately excluded from the Bible. Now it's been said by scholars and other people as well that the New Testament earliest completion of all 27 books had not been given till A.D. 367 by Athanasius, a bishop from Egypt. Now what this tells us is that the first complete listing of the New Testament hadn't been completed until 300 years after Jesus had been crucified. Now, apparently during the first four centuries, there were substantial controvercies and disagreements over which books should be included. The first person who tried to establish the New Testament canon was the second-century heretic, Marcion. He wanted the church to reject it's Jewish heritage. There is a very good website that I have found regarding to your question. I have listed the address below. Hope this helps. Have a blessed day.

Answer 4

I have heard so many lies and every one of those lies never sieze to amaze me I guess because they are from the Devil. I must say the Devil is a very good liar, no wonder he is called the father of all lies.

For some reason people are always looking for reasons or excuses not to follow Jesus Christ and the one reason which is used the most is that the Bible is not real, or that it has been altered so many times, or that it has faults, or that it's not reliable and so forth and so forth. The best way the Devil can attack a person to prevent them from not believing in God is to use the Bible.

I had to get that off my chest first but to answer your questions.
Who compiled the books of the New Testament? Let me ask or answer the question, who compiled the books of the Bible? First of all the Bible was written by men who were led by the Holy Spirit, meaning they did not write of their own knowledge but the knowledge or wisdom of God (if you don't believe it's ok, but otherwise it's a fact). God told them what to write. The bible is a word of God. The Bible was compiled by men chosen by God.

The authoritarian of the Bible is God and no one else. If anyone changes it they will be dealt with personally by God but that does not mean the mistake or change will be left uncorrected.

Answer 5

Council of Nicea in 325. Other councils have been convened since then (Hippo, i & II Carthage) to validate the decisions made at Nicea.

Also, remember that as part of the Protestant Reformation, several books were removed from the Protestant Bible; these still exist in the Catholoc Bible--we call them the Apocrypha. Only one of these (II Esdras) was supposed to be written after the life of Jesus, however.

The Protestants did review the decisions made by the councils of Nicea, Hippo, and Carthage--in fact the book of Revelation was almost removed from the Protestant New Testament with the Apocrypha. But though they agreed with the judgment of the Catholic church, that does not mean that they automatically recognized them as the authority--the Reformation's mandate was the authority of God and not of the Catholic (or any) church.

Answer 6

The church (body of Christ) has existed since the time of Pentecost.
The Roman Catholic church did not exist until the time of Constantine in 313A.D.

The New Testament books were letters written to churches that existed hundreds of years before the Catholic church.
God is the one who inspired the men that wrote the New Testament and God is the one who preserved His Word.

Unfortunately the Catholic church places tradition above the written word of God and has therefore come into many errors of the faith that are not biblical.

Jesus had brothers and sisters, Peter was married, , baptism is by immersion, sin can only be forgiven by God alone, etc.

There are churches that never came out of Catholicism, and trace their doctrinal history directly to the New Testament.

If the Catholic church recognizes the authority of Scripture then why does it ignore that scripture in favor of tradition?

Answer 7

Edger Allen Poe

Answer 8

The Nicene council ... an ecumenical (multi-denominational) group met and prayerfully decided which books belonged in the bible and which books were not acceptable.

It is understood by Christians that God worked through these men to preserve His word as He wanted it to be.

Answer 9

>>Unwittingly therefore, Protestants and fundamenalists implicitly admit the authority of the Catholic Church. Please comment.<<

Very true, and this is one of the reasons I left Protestantism. Most Protestants will just deny it, however.

Answer 10

Whoever compiled the New Testament, God had arranged everything to made it to be a best holy scripture.