Lk. 1:1-4; Acts 1-3, The Authority of Scripture (3)

We have been talking about the canonization of the New Testament.  The Old Testament was a different issue as it was the work of the Jews.  The compilation of the OT took place over a long period of time.  Moses’ writings were accepted from the time they were written.  The more historical books (e.g. Judges, the books of Samuel and the Kings) were records that developed over a longer time than one author.  There were four classes of writings relative to OT canon, developed after the close of the OT Canon because of questions raised by some Jews about certain other books.

1) Homologoumena:(books agreed to) those books received as canonical and never questioned (34 in number).

2) Antilegomena: (books spoken against) those books whose place in the canon was later disputed by some Jews (5: Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezekiel, Proverbs)

3) Apocrypha: (secret books) those books written after the canonical books that were not admitted.

4) Pseudepigrapha: (false writings) those written by unknown persons 200 years before and after the birth of Christ, claimed to be the writings of OT char-acters.

For us, as Christians, the completed OT Canon was accepted by Jesus without reservation or exception.  In Luke 24:27,44, the Law, Prophets, Psalms were all acknowledged by Jesus. In Matt. 5:17 Jesus referred to the OT as the “Law and Prophets,” which were the largest sections.  The arrangements were different than what we see in our English Bible, and sometimes varied among the Jews.  For example, sometimes the Prophets included the books of Poetry (i.e. the Psalms.)  The common Jewish classification of the OT was like this:

     a)      Law: Genesis-Deuteronomy.

     b)      Prophets: Josh-Esther, Isaiah-Malachi

     c)      Psalms: Job-Song of Solomon

The completed OT Canon was regularly quoted in the NT without reservation or exception.

With respect to the NT we might note one question: did the NT books have authorship by spokesmen for God?  That is, were the writers all Apostles or did they have a close connection with one of the Apostles?

     1)      Matthew, John, Romans-Philemon, I-II Peter, I-III John, and Revelation were penned by Apostles themselves

     2)      Mark was linked to Peter; Luke and his follow-up book Acts, were linked to Paul.  Today’s reading reflects on Luke’s Spirit-led approach to writing his Gospel as well as Acts.

     3)      Hebrews was debated, considered by some to be from Paul.  Some considered Apollos to be the human author, and he was linked to Paul

     4)      James and Jude brothers of Christ and also linked to the apostles in Jerusalem.