A Short Case for the Canon of Scripture, by Colt Howell
How do you know what belongs in the Bible? That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I mean really, how do you know what belongs in the Bible- and what doesn’t? One of the questions that comes up a lot when people start examining the Bible is, “Why do Catholics have extra books in their Old Testament?” Another question from the Roman Catholic side might be something like “Why are Protestants missing books in their Old Testament?” Well, that is a great question. It’s also not an unreasonable question to even ask. If we believe that the Bible is God’s Word, then we want to make sure we’re getting that right—because if we add books that don’t belong, or take away ones that do, we’re messing with something we have no right to change. Revelation warns against taking away or adding to scripture. John writes “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:18-19) If we want to take our faith seriously, then we must get this right.
So, why do Protestants and Catholics disagree on this? Well, I hope that this can clear up any confusion, any perhaps even shed some light on some darkness that you didn’t even know was there. Let us consider five things:
1. The Reformers Weren’t Doing Anything New—They Were Going Back to the Original
Sometimes people think that Martin Luther just decided to take books out of the Bible. But that’s not actually what happened. The Reformers weren’t removing anything—they were recovering the canon that the early church recognized and that Jesus and the apostles used. Josephus, a first century historian writes the following:
“For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine.” (Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 c. 95AD)
In other words, Josephus affirms that the Jewish Scriptures were distinct from other writings, and also corresponds with the Protestant Old Testament. The “twenty-two” might seem off, but that’s because many of the books we have broken in two were simply combined during this time. Eusebius backs up a similar thing, too. Now this guy (bear with me here) was a Greek Syro-Palestinian historian of Christianity. He famously wrote Ecclesiastical History, which reads as follows, regarding the canon of the Old Testament:
“Their names are as follows: of Moses, five books; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy… Of David, one book of Psalms. Of Solomon, three books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. Also, Job. Of the Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in a single book…”
What you will NOT see in these early Christian accounts of the Old Testament canon is the Apocrypha. If you look at history, the Jewish people had already settled on 39 books in their Scriptures, and those are the same books that make up our Old Testament today. The Apocrypha was around, sure, but it was never treated as Scripture. Luther and the Reformers saw this, and just went back to what had always been the case.
2. Jesus and the Apostles Never Quote the Apocrypha as Scripture
Think about this: every time Jesus or the apostles quote the Old Testament, they introduce it with something like, “It is written” or “Thus says the Lord.” But they never do that with the Apocrypha. Not once. Now, if those books were actually part of the Bible, you’d expect Jesus to recognize them as Scripture, wouldn’t you? But He doesn’t. That ALONE should make us pause. If Jesus didn’t treat them as God’s Word, why should we?
3. The Jews Never Considered These Books to Be Scripture
This is another huge point, and also goes back to what the Reformers stood on. God entrusted the Old Testament to the Jewish people (Romans 3:2), and by the time of Jesus, they had a clear, settled canon—39 books. The Apocrypha wasn’t in it. Jewish historians like Josephus confirmed this, and even the early church fathers debated whether those books belonged. Church Father Jerome of the late 4th century writes in a commentary:
“As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes [Wisdom and Sirach] for the edification of the people, but not to establish the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas.”
This is the same guy responsible for a major translation of the Bible, the Latin Vulgate. And he rejected the Apocrypha as authoritative Scripture. And he isn’t the only church father that is on this boat, either. The famed Athanasius writes:
“There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number… But, for greater exactness, I add this also, that there are other books outside these, which are indeed not included in the canon, but have been appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness.”
Very interesting! So, when the Catholic Church officially added them in the 1500s at the Council of Trent, they were going against the very people God originally gave the Old Testament to. That’s a problem.
4. Some of These Books Contain Bad Theology
This is where it really starts to hit home. The Apocrypha doesn’t just add extra stories—it introduces teachings that contradict the gospel.
- 2 Maccabees 12:45-46 talks about praying for the dead so that their sins can be forgiven. It reads “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” But Hebrews 9:27 makes it clear: after death comes judgment. No second chances. No purgatory. It reads “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:27-28)
- Tobit 12:9 says that giving to the poor “delivers from death and purges away every sin.” But that’s the opposite of what the Bible teaches. We are saved by grace through faith, not by our good works. Paul writes “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
- Then you have Tobit 6, where an angel tells someone to use fish guts to drive away demons. I am not making this up. The text reads “Then the young man asked the angel: ‘Brother Azariah, what medicinal value is there in the fish’s heart, liver, and gall?’ He replied: ‘As for the fish’s heart and liver, if you burn them to make smoke in the presence of a man or a woman who is afflicted by a demon or evil spirit, the affliction will flee, and never return.’” Now, that’s not JUST bad theology—that’s superstition.
Now, if a book is REALLY inspired by God, it’s not going to contradict what God has already said, right? But that’s exactly what we see in the Apocrypha.
5. Who Decides What Scripture Is?
And that brings us to the most important point: who has the authority to decide what belongs in the Bible?
The Catholic Church says they do. That’s why they officially declared the Apocrypha to be Scripture in the 1500s—more than 1,500 years after those books were written! You know what else? The Roman Catholic Church canonized the Apocrypha in response to Protestant rejection. Protestants believe that the church doesn’t make something Scripture; the church recognizes what God has already inspired. In other words, we don’t give the Bible its authority—God does. The real question isn’t, “What does the church say?” The real question is, “What has God actually spoken?”
How do we know that what we DO have is RIGHT?
So why these books? Why not others? Well, here’s the first thing you need to understand: The church didn’t choose the Bible. The church RECOGNIZED the Bible. That’s a massive distinction. The authority of Scripture doesn’t come from a council of bishops sitting in a room saying, “Okay, let’s vote on which books make the cut.” No, these books were inspired by God from the moment they were written. The church merely confirmed what had already been true.
How did they know? Well, think about it this way. Imagine you’re standing in a room with a dozen light bulbs, and one of them is the sun. When you look at them, the SUN doesn’t need an identifier. You know for a fact which one is different. More than that, the other lights become a joke, become WORTHLESS. You don’t even pay them any attention at all because all you have is the blinding and glorious light of the sun. That’s how the early Christians thought about these books. They had a unique divine self-authenticating quality to them.
That’s why, from the very beginning, God’s people have had a remarkably unified understanding of which books are Scripture. The Jews recognized the 39 books of the Old Testament. Jesus himself affirmed that same canon when he talked about “the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44). And the apostles and early church quickly recognized the writings of Paul, Peter, and John as having that same divine authority.
There were clear, logical criteria at work too. Was a book written by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle? Did it align with the teaching of Jesus? Had it been recognized and used by the church from the very beginning? Books that met these standards—books like Matthew, Romans, and Revelation—were quickly affirmed as God’s Word. Others, like the so-called “Gospel of Thomas” or the Apocrypha, didn’t hold up.
So no, we don’t have the Bible we have today because a group of guys sat down and made arbitrary decisions. We have it because God gave it, and his people, by his Spirit, recognized it. And when you open your Bible today, you can have confidence that you are holding in your hands exactly what God wanted you to have—no more, no less.
Why This Matters
I hope you’re seeing that at the end of the day, this isn’t just an academic debate. This is about whether or not we’re listening to God’s voice. If the Bible is truly God’s Word, then we don’t get to add to it or take away from it. And we can be confident that the 66 books we have—the ones recognized from the very beginning—are exactly the ones God wanted us to have.
And here’s the best news of all: the Bible is enough. Everything we need to know about salvation, about who God is, about what Christ has done—it’s all there. We don’t need extra books. We don’t need to add to the gospel. God has given us His Word, and that is more than enough.