Once again, please no Ad Homs. But let’s’ still have a lively discussion.
Again, as before, I will refrain from commenting.
I personally have no idea how or why certain books, chapters, verses etc. were selected for the New Testament. I trust that those who did, knew what they were doing.
I also do not know which translation is best. My Grandfather attended Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville back in the early 1900s. He was an absolute genius.
I remember his telling me one time that the King James Version of the Bible was an excellent translation.
Who determined the canon is fixed? Where does it say revelation ceased?
The NT books commonly agreed on by all Christians in the first century were..
The Four Gospels
Acts
All the letters of Paul except Hebrews (uncertain authorship, I believe he did write it)
1 Peter
1 John
And that was all.
200 years later additional books added were...
James
2nd Peter
More private letters of John,
Jude
Revelation.
Even then there was enough doubt about them that they were placed together in the back of the Bible.
Whoever made this decision had to have a recognized and accepted authority to do so given to them by someone who had the power to do so. Otherwise, anyone could claim to have that authority and make any list that pleased them.
So the question to answer first is: Who had the authority to decide the canon? To go about the task, however long it took, to include some books and exclude others. Find out who that is, and what canon they used (or still use); and then-- viola-- you will find your canon.
***Secondly, the three earliest Greek manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus).... contains at least one book that Catholics, Protestants, and Coptics do not believe to be inspired scripture.***
That would be THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS. Read it and you will see why it is rejected. It is a joke!
It is historically known that Constantine ordered the printing of fifty bibles. This was a massive undertaking as the pages were made of antelope skin, bound, handcoppied and distributed to the churches.
Some have suggested that when the three bibles mentioned here were found to contain errors they were stored away (too valuable to toss them) and that is why they survived the centuries. They simply were unused much so never got the wear and tear other “RED (read) bibles” got.
Another interesting way to look a the bible is, just which ones did the early preachers preach from?
Looking at all the sermons of the first 400 years, we can probably find every verse of the NT quoted (in Greek) as it is written in our modern bibles.
I wish The Didache and the letters of Clement of Rome had been included, and the Book of Revelation dropped.
There were a number of competing canons in the first century AD, ranging from the Sadducees' canon (which was just the 5 books of the Torah) to the Septuagint canon (46 books). There was vigorous debate between Beth Shammai and Beth Hillel over the Chronicles and the Song of Songs, and so forth. A twenty-four book canon is mentioned in the Midrash Koheleth.
It's a reasonable inference from evidence that Jesus and His Apostles accepted the full Septuagint canon (46 books), since 85% of the OT verses quoted in the NT are quoted directly from the Septuagint.
Consider the anti-Messianic faction of the Jews led by Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai in the first century AD. After the Temple was destroyed they were facing an existential threat, being increasingly challenged by the growing Messianic (Christian) movement. Whether at a hypothetical Jewish Council of Yavneh/Jamnia or elsewhere, Yohanan ben Zakkai and his Halachic School eventually came up with their own OT canon (an anti-Messianic canon) sometime between 90 AD and 100 AD.
This scaled-down canon included 39 books and excluded 34 books. All of excluded books were written in Greek: the 7 Deutercanonicals plus the 27 books we now know as the New Testament. (Whether John 1, 2, 3 and Revelation had been written yet I do not know, but I am including them in the count because they were all excluded by the circa 90 AD rabbinical reaction against Christianity.)
They excluded these books because they supported so directly to the beliefs and practices of the rival Christian community.
The limitation of the TaNaKh to the 39 Hebrew manuscripts, while accepted by the anti-Messianic Jews (Ben Zakkai) was not accepted by the pro-Messianic Jews (Christians) nor by the Gentile converts to the Christian faith.
The Masoretic Text, a very late development, was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. --- it's the authoritative Hebrew text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism today, as well as for most of the Protestants.
The bottom line is really what St. Jerome (translator of the Vulgate) said about his final, 46-book OT Canon: "What sin have I committed if I follow the judgment of the churches?"(Against Rufinius 11:33, A.D. 401). "The judgment of the churches." That means he was going beyond his own individual opinion, going beyond the halachic opinion of rabbis who didn't believe in Christ, and going instead with the consensus of the churches who had received the Scriptures from the Apostles, and from the successors of the Apostles, for their liturgical proclamation.
In other words, Jerome could go forward with
He could choose his own self, the Pharisaical-rabbinical tradition, or the Christian tradition. He went with the Christian tradition.
That was the ultimate source of the canon --- the churches' actual liturgical practice (Lex oreandi, lex credendi") which was handed down to them from the Apostles, presumably under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Christ said (John 16:13) "When the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth." Christ, through the Holy Spirit, through the processes of history, established and protected the canon via the practice of the churches, ratified by Church councils.
St. Jerome (ca 401 AD) finally decided to abide by the Christian Councils. The Reformation-era Bible publishers (16th-17th century) decided to abide by the Rabbinical Councils. I would argue that Jerome made the better choice.
And yes, the Church would necessarily have infallible authority over this.
I rest my case.
Sorry for all the typos. I’m sleepy.