Why the Twenty-Seven Books in our New Testament?

Have you ever stopped to wonder why we have the twenty-seven books in our New Testament canon and not others? Why aren’t there twenty-eight or twenty-six? Why only four Gospels when skeptics tell us that the Church suppressed dozens of other Gospels? How come those didn’t make the cut? What if, after all these years, we’ve had the wrong books in our Bible?

If you watch a History Channel special or read some of the skeptical literature, you get the impression that the New Testament canon came down to an arbitrary vote. That is, the winners decided which books to include and exclude. In other words, the canon could have easily been radically different.

Yet this narrative couldn’t be farther from the truth. The compilation of the New Testament canon wasn’t arbitrary. Rather, the universal church looked for a set of attributes from each book to tell them which belonged. These attributes included: divine qualities, apostolic origins, and universal reception.¹

DIVINE QUALITIES

First, the church recognized the books which had divine qualities. For example, early Christian writer Origen writes:

If anyone ponders over the prophetic sayings… it is certain that in the very act of reading and diligently studying them his mind and feelings will be touched by a divine breath and he will recognize the words he is reading are not utterances of man but the language of God.²

But how did the church recognize divine qualities in these books? It did so by observing their harmony, power, and beauty.

SCRIPTURE’S HARMONY

Logic told the early church that if God inspired a document, it wouldn’t contradict other inspired documents. The early church, therefore, only affirmed writings that were consistent with the rest of Scripture. For this reason, church father Irenaeus declares,

All Scripture, which has been given to us by God, shall be found by us perfectly consistent… and through the many diversified utterances there shall be heard one harmonious melody.³

Take the Gospel of Thomas for example. This document reports, “Jesus said… For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” This statement is not something Jesus would ever say. It not only contradicts Genesis 1, which declares both male and female are made in the image of God, but it also contradicts the value Jesus placed on women in his ministry.

SCRIPTURE’S POWER

Hebrews 4:12 states, “the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword.” The early church saw the powerful effect these documents had on them, and concluded that they were divine. Justin Martyr, referring to New Testament writings affirms,

For they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to inspire those who turn aside from the path of rectitude with awe.⁴

SCRIPTURE’S BEAUTY

Psalm 19:7-8 declares, “The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” Put another way, when one reads the Scripture, they encounter the beauty and perfection of God.

Jerome, author of the Latin Vulgate declared in his commentary on Philemon:

[it’s] a document which has so much of the beauty of the Gospel… [which is a] mark of it’s inspiration.⁵

Tatian, another early church father declares:

I was led to put faith in these [Scriptures] by the unpretending cast of the language… the foreknowledge displayed of future events, the excellent quality of the precepts.⁶

The early church saw something beautiful in the text of Scripture which caused it to stand out from other works of literature. Taken together with the text’s harmony and power, the early church was able to recognize the documents that possessed divine qualities.

APOSTOLIC ORIGINS

The second attribute used to recognize a book’s canonical status was its apostolic origins. In other words, did an apostle or a close associate produce the document?

The early church universally affirmed all four of our Gospels based on their apostolic authority. Even though Justin Martyr knew that two of the Gospels were not written by apostles (Mark and Luke), he still referred to the Gospels as the “memoirs of the apostles.”⁷ He does so because he understood Mark’s connection to Peter, and Luke’s to Paul. Tertullian even described Mark and Luke as “apostolic men.”⁸

The church universally rejected the other “Gospels” because pseudonymous authors penned them in the second century, long after the apostle’s died. Of all the early New Testament canon lists we have, not one of them includes the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, or any other pseudonymous Gospel. No one in the church ever seriously thought these books belonged in the New Testament.

A few books were up for discussion — 1 Clement, The Shepherd of Hermas, The Epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache — but because they weren’t backed by apostolic authority, they weren’t included. They were helpful reads, much like a devotional book might be today, but not Scripture.

The early church fathers even recognized that their own writings didn’t carry the same authority as the apostles. Ignatius, writing early in the second century admits:

I am not [commanding] you as Peter and Paul did. They were apostles, I am condemned.⁹

UNIVERSAL RECEPTION

The final attribute used to recognize a book’s canonical status was its universal reception in the church. That is to say, the church throughout the entire empire agreed that this work possessed divine qualities and had apostolic origins. When you read the early Christian literature, what you’ll find is that most of the New Testament was unanimously affirmed as Scripture by the second century.

Keep in mind, each of the twenty-seven documents were individual works. They didn’t all circulate around the empire together. Some of the shorter letters, like 2 and 3 John, didn’t get as much exposure as say the four Gospels, Acts, or Romans. Therefore, most of the earliest canon lists have an essential core (four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation), while some of the shorter letters near the end of our New Testament are missing.¹⁰

It’s not as if Christians rejected these shorter letters. The universal church simply didn’t have the opportunity to read them due to their lack of circularity. By the fourth century, once ample time had passed and all the documents circulated the empire, the church affirmed the twenty-seven books found in our New Testament. Traditionally, it’s argued that the earliest completed list comes from Athanasius in AD 367. Later regional councils in Hippo (AD 393) and Carthage (AD 397) also affirm the complete New Testament canon. Leading canon expert Michael Kruger, however, argues that Origen lists all twenty-seven books in AD 250.¹¹

NEW TESTAMENT CANON CONFIRMED

Looking for these three attributes — divine qualities, apostolic authority, and universal reception — the early church affirmed the New Testament canon without much controversy. Of course, this type of news doesn’t make it into mainstream media. After all, controversy sells, not tradition. Yet, this is what we get from reading the early church.

We don’t get wild power struggles or nail-biting debates on which books to include in the New Testament canon. There was no debate on the pseudonymous gospels inclusion. We don’t see the Gospel of Thomas, Judas, or Mary ever considered. Instead, we have the core New Testament canon (four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation) affirmed in the second century. Once the shorter epistles circulated the empire, the Church affirmed the complete canon by the fourth century.

Will the History Channel ever run a special on why we have the right books in our New Testament? I wouldn’t bet on it.

1. see Michael Kruger, Canon Revisited.
2. Origen, De Principiias, 4.1.6.
3. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 2.23.3.
4. Justin Martyr, Dialogue 8.2.
5. Jerome, Prologue to Philemon.
6. Tatian, Address to the Greeks, 29.
7. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66.3.
8. Tertullian, Against Marcion, 4.2.
9. Ignatius, Romans 4:4.
10. see Eusebius’ list.
11. michaeljkruger.com/what-is-the-earliest-complete-list-of-the-canon-of-the-new-testament/.