The Bible Canon

[gdelizabeth1918]

Hi, I was wondering what the LDS teaching is on the development of the Bible canon? In other words, what might the LDS response be to questions like these:

Where did the Bible come from?

Who wrote the Bible and when?

Why are certain books in the Bible and not others?

Who decided what would be in the Bible?

What did Bibles look like in the ancient Church?

What about claims that are made about the existence of secret books, as in The Da Vinci Code or the Gospel of Judas?

Thank you.

[Faded]

Hi, I was wondering what the LDS teaching is on the development of the Bible canon? In other words, what might the LDS response be to questions like these:

Okay, I'll bite.

Where did the Bible come from?

Who wrote the Bible and when?

Why are certain books in the Bible and not others?

Who decided what would be in the Bible?

Two separate events of canonization occurred. The Old Testament canon was sorted out by the Jewish scholars. The Jewish canon is essentially identical to the Christian canon with some Christian denominations adding additional books: 1 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Maccabees 1-4, Odes, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah. The Latter Day Saint recognized canon of the Old Testament contains all of the Jewish canon and does not include any of these additional books. The Song of Solomon is included in our printing of the Bible, but according to Joseph Smith, it is not an inspired text. Who wrote the Old Testament? In general, the prophet whose name appears at the beginning of the book. Isaiah wrote Isaiah, Ezekiel wrote Ezekiel, etc.

There are some cases where we know for certain that the book was written in part by somebody else. Case in point, 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel cannot have all been written by the prophet Samuel (at least not in their entirety) as the contents extend to the end of the reign of David, and Samuel was dead for many years by then. There is a lot of room for theory-crafting when it comes to Biblical authorship. LDS Church policy doesn't officially take a stand on who wrote what, but accepts the contents of the Lutheran and King James Bible to be inspired works and the additional books generally referred to as The Apocrypha as being a mixture of inspired writings and uninspired additions/corruptions by humankind.

"Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the Apocrypha—There are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly; There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom; And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited." Doctrine and Covenants 91.

The trouble faced by all scholarly groups was simple enough: There were some records which claimed to be inspired which were complete fabrications. There were some books that may have been inspired texts in their original form, but too much had been changed or corrupted by the creative licence of transcribers in these records to maintain confidence in their purity any longer. There were some books whose content was almost entirely uncorrupted. The trouble was sorting out which was which.

The canonization of the New Testament is wholly a Christian endeavor. The compilation of the New Testament cited early Christian fathers such as Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Marcion, Origen and others. Sorting out which were inspired texts and which were fabrications was largely accomplished by referencing which New Testament works they cited and which they did not. Finalization of the canonization occured at the Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419. Revelation was added to the list in 419.

The important difference between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and other Christian denominations: We do no regard the canon as closed. "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." (9th Article of Faith)

What did Bibles look like in the ancient Church?

In the time of the Apostles, there would have been no compiled Bible as we know it. They would have had the Old Testament readily available. The written works of the Apostles would have been hit or miss, and not as general as the Old Testament, and many hadn't even been written yet. Obviously, a compiled Bible as a single volume wouldn't have existed until after 419 AD when the canon of the New Testament was finalized. And it is hard to say if the average Christian of that era ever had their own copies of the Bible. We do know that general circulation of the Bible to the masses did not exist throughout the Middle Ages, and this didn't change until Martin Luther dared to defy the Roman Catholic Church and translate, then print the Bible into the common language and make it available to everyone.

What about claims that are made about the existence of secret books, as in The Da Vinci Code or the Gospel of Judas?

Thank you.

We believe that there were many plain and precious things taken from the Biblical record before it was compiled because that is what the Lord has said. We don't know exactly what form that deletion of material took. Missing chapters of the Old and New Testament canonical works? Missing books? We don't know.

We do not accept any current Psuedopigraphorical Old and New Testament works as authoritative. Whatever was lost either has yet to be uncovered or was destroyed entirely and will either have to be re-revealed to the world or simply have to wait until Christ comes again when all things will be revealed.

We have seen the restoration of missing parts of the Bible. See The Book of Abraham, The Book of Moses, Joseph Smith Matthew (compare to Matthew chapter 24), and we believe that God had a people anciently here on the American continent, and that The Book of Mormon is the record left behind by them before they fell away from God and were destroyed by their enemies. We believe that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel have their own records that will one day be revealed along with their location(s). We believe that revelation and scripture are an ongoing process and that there is never an end to the Word of God.

"As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints." Doctrine and Covenants 121.

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen." John 21:25.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Faded

[Traveler]

Hi, I was wondering what the LDS teaching is on the development of the Bible canon? In other words, what might the LDS response be to questions like these:

Where did the Bible come from?

Who wrote the Bible and when?

Why are certain books in the Bible and not others?

Who decided what would be in the Bible?

What did Bibles look like in the ancient Church?

What about claims that are made about the existence of secret books, as in The Da Vinci Code or the Gospel of Judas?

Thank you.

LDS believe the Bible to be ancient revealed scripture that has been corrupted (lost some precious and important doctrines). We hold the Bible to be sacred but not complete and thus the engine of much disagreement on doctrine among Christians today. Our understanding of the Bible is generally given in history. Below I summarize much of our understanding.

1. The canonization of the bible was the work of men and not G-d. There is no Bible scripture or any indication from G-d commanding or directing man as to:

(1) What books of scripture should be contained in the Bible.

(2) Which ancient text is most reliable.

(3) If any of the ancient text should be translated.

2. That the ancient scriptures prophesy indicate that a time of famine concerning the word of G-d would cover the land (Amos 8:11)

3. That prior to the return of the Messiah there would be a “restitution” of things lost (Acts 3:21)

4. That throughout history G-d has spoken and prophesied to many people beyond what provided in scripture. It is interesting that among the scriptures of the Nestorian Christians of Asia there is an ancient manuscript (carbon dated to the time of Christ and proven to have come from the Jerusalem area) that is claimed to be an espial (letter) written by the very hand of Christ.

We believe that G-d has provided witness via the Dead Sea Scriptures that for most of the time since Christ the wrong ancient texts (not the most accurate) were used to create the Bible. It is also very sad but the single most influential individual (Charlemagne) on the bible as we have it today was also one of history’s worst mass murderer that was responsible for more deaths in Europe than the Black Plague.

Finely – we believe that we are in the “Last Days” quickly approaching the time when Jesus will come again and that this is the one most important thing for which man must prepare. We believe that this event is so important that G-d has called prophets like unto Moses and Isaiah of the Old Testament or Peter and John of the New Testament and especially as the L-rd provided John the Baptist as a prophet to go before Christ – so are prophets called to go before Christ in these last days. I invite you to listen to the words of these prophets that will be speaking to the world this week end (according to prophesy) from the “top of the mountains”. (Isaiah 2:2) The word “Utah” in the Native American Ute language means – Top of the Mountains.

The Traveler

[rameumptom]

Hi, I was wondering what the LDS teaching is on the development of the Bible canon? In other words, what might the LDS response be to questions like these:

Where did the Bible come from?

The Bible is a collection of books written anciently in the Middle East. The books are believed to all have been written by inspired authors. There are some LDS who concur with many scholars in believing that some of the books as we now have them were written later.

Who wrote the Bible and when?

We believe that the books of the Bible were primarily written by inspired men. However, since the earliest copies of books we now have are in the Dead Sea Scrolls (written about 100 BC), we can only surmise from internal contextual evidence whether the books as we now have them are as ancient as the original authors.

Why are certain books in the Bible and not others?

We believe that many precious things were lost from the Bible, due to the errors and choices of scribes and clerics along the way. Our current Bible has the books it has, primarily due to St Jerome, who tried to determine which books were authentic, and which were not. This meant he had to toss out dozens of books considered inspired at the time (Book of Enoch, Shepherd of Hermas, etc). He also tossed out books that were not written by apostles (Shepherd of Hermas). Still, politics did play some role, as he wished to toss out Hebrews and Revelation, but kept them in order to get the Western Church to accept his list.

Who decided what would be in the Bible?

There have been a few times in history when the books were collected. It is believed that Ezra was the first main redactor, combining different versions of the Books of Moses, and other scripture. The Rabbi Hillel is believed to have collected the first "official" Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), about the time Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Many collections of books were used during the early days of Christianity, but St Jerome succeeded in establishing the list we use today.

What did Bibles look like in the ancient Church?

Ancient as in Bible times? They didn't have Bibles. They had books or scrolls of each book. Later, Bibles were hand written carefully by scribes for centuries. This was a very slow process, and so most people did not have access to the scriptures and listened to their priest recite from them. This was the case until the printing press was invented. After that, Bibles were common, printed in many languages, and not just in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

What about claims that are made about the existence of secret books, as in The Da Vinci Code or the Gospel of Judas?

There are many books that probably should be part of the Bible canon. Many exist today, and you can read many of them online at these locations:

Gnostic Society Library: Sources on Gnosticism and Gnosis

Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers

For more information on the Old Testament and how it has changed over the years, I have written on it extensively in my Old Testament Gospel Doctrine blog: joelsmonastery.blogspot.com

[Faded]

1. The canonization of the bible was the work of men and not G-d. There is no Bible scripture or any indication from G-d commanding or directing man as to:

(1) What books of scripture should be contained in the Bible.

(2) Which ancient text is most reliable.

(3) If any of the ancient text should be translated.

The important correlary to this: We concur with the canon as found in the Bible as it exists today. We don't know exactly what got left out or removed before the compilation and canonization of the Biblical texts but modern revelation verifies that what texts were selected were authentic. Of the 66 books of the Bible, we hold 65 to be inspired writings and sufficient in their current form to be profitable for doctrine, etc. The Song of Solomon is the only exception. Entire books by prophets and apostles of God are referenced in the Bible, but we do not have them today. There are many texts of ancient date that have been around for a long time or recently uncovered:

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

Nag Hammadi Gnostic library

New Testament Pseudepigrapha

Yet out of all this giant mass of works, living prophets and apostles have not received any revelation confirming any one of them as inspired works and worthy of inclusion in our canon of Scripture. If any of them were true records written by inspiration of God and sufficiently uncorrupted, the Lord most certainly would not have remained silent on the matter. So their current forms, all of these texts fall under the counsel from God regarding the Apocrypha in Section 91 of the Doctrine of Covenants.

Conclusion: The scholarly work of canonization of the Bible was almost entirely successful in compiling and preserving the best of what was left of inspired text -- which is to say they chose the right books to be included in the Bible. They were remarkably successful in leaving out the uninspired/corrupted dross. Whatever legitimate inspired works were left out, we can conclude that no authentic uncorrupted copies survive today insofar as the world at large has as yet uncovered. The most likely conclusion is that most of what is missing from the Bible was probably already missing when the work of compilation and canonization was begun.

If the scholars who undertook the work of canonization had a hand in "taking away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away" we cannot be certain. It is more likely in my mind that the work of deletion and destruction mentioned by God to Nephi was already complete, and that these scholars successfully gathered the best of the surviving texts into the canon of the Bible. Their success rate at sorting the gold from the dross seems the best indication that this was the case and that their intentions were good and that the Spirit of God had a hand in helping them.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Faded