Since that was Jesus who said that, He would have made it known if something was missing. He spoke and acted and conducted Himself as if all that God had said (which we know what He had...) -- would be fulfilled in its entirety. He made the point that not one jot of tittle would pass away, until all was fulfilled.
Now, that would be a very misleading thing for Jesus to say, if He knew that He was speaking about a part of the Bible (that He knew about) which was missing and that no one else, at that time, knew anything about it.
I think, just by that alone, we can be assured that we have every bit of what Jesus referred to, as not one jot or tittle passing away until all be fulfilled, in that Old Testament that Jesus used all the time.
AND..., thus, we're down to the New Testament, having "dispensed" with the issue as far as the Old Testament is concerned.
And with the New Testament, an advantage is that it's a whole lot easier to deal with, in that respect, than the Old Testament is. That's because it's so much more recent and we have so much material available to us, from the New Testament (from the Church fathers and their writing about it) -- and it was written so soon after Jesus' resurrection.
I won't go a whole lot into the New Testament, because that doesn't seem to be an issue, as far as I can tell, with the overabundance of material we have and that we can track everything written in the New Testament right back to within a mere years and decades of them happening -- with the very oldest book of the new Testament being written within the very same century of when Jesus was here. The very oldest book (the one furthest away from the death of Christ) in the New Testament was written only a mere 60 years (approximately) after Jesus died on the Cross. That's the very last book written.
James 45-49 AD Galatians 49 1 & 2 Thessalonians 51 Mark 50s or 60s Matthew 50s or 60s 1 Corinthians 55 2 Corinthians 56 Romans 57-58 Luke 60 Acts 61 Colossians 61 Ephesians 61 Philippians 63 Philemon 63 1 Peter 63-64 1 Timothy 63-66 Titus 63-66 Hebrews 64-68 2 Peter 66 2 Timothy 68 Jude 68-80 John 85-90 1, 2, 3 John 85-90 Revelation 90-95
Look at that -- everything except Jude, John, 1, 2, 3 John and Revelation -- all written before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, in 70 AD.
These were books that were circulating and recognized immediately as inspired and thus accepted automatically into the canon of Scripture -- all while the Jerusalem Church was active and growing in Jerusalem.
In other words, we've got Jesus verifying it for us when He was here -- and then with the New Testament, we've got practically all of it written before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. And for those remaining few, the rest by (at the "outside") only 25 years after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem.
That's pretty amazing -- and you can bet your bottom dollar that nothing is missing there... :-)
As best as can be determined, every book in the Bible was immediately accepted as canonical--or genuinely inspired by God--by the contemporaries of the author. That is, no book in the Bible was originally doubted as being inspired by those who knew the author, but later came to be accepted as inspired.
See the complete article below ...
The Development of the Canon. The word "canon" is used to describe the set of books that are considered to be divinely inspired by God and intended by Him to be circulated among, and read by, those interested in knowing what God has to say. It is important to remember that the Bible was not written as one book. It is a collection of 66 separate books: 39 books in the Old Testament, and 27 books in the New Testament. In most cases, these books were originally written, and later copied, on individual scrolls or parchments. Only over time were these books collected and bound together as the "Bible" (the word "Bible" comes from the Greek word biblia, which means "books").
It is important to recognize a distinction between "inspiration" and "canonization." Inspiration is the means by which God revealed His thoughts through the writings of mortal men. Canonization is the process by which mortal men discovered which writings were inspired. In practice, the process of identifying which books were inspired consisted of identifying whether the author of the book was an acknowledged prophet of God. As best as can be determined, every book in the Bible was immediately accepted as canonical--or genuinely inspired by God--by the contemporaries of the author. That is, no book in the Bible was originally doubted as being inspired by those who knew the author, but later came to be accepted as inspired.
The problem lies on the other side. There are a number of books where it is difficult to determine who wrote the book because so much time has passed since the book was originally written. In these cases, there is usually a tradition that attributes authorship of the book to a well known prophet; but there are also grounds for doubting the reliability of the tradition. Then the question of inspiration becomes stickier.
In general, religious books can be categorized into 4 categories. First there are the books that virtually all scholars agree belong in the canon (these are called the "Homologoumena"). Second are the books that most all scholars agree belong in the canon, but over which there is some dispute (these are called the "Antilegomena"). Third are the books that most scholars agree don't belong in the canon, but some believe are canonical (these are called the "Apocrypha"). Lastly are the books that virtually all scholars agree don't belong in the canon (these are called the "Pseudepigrapha"). The big question is how many books fit into the second and third categories--the "Antilegomena" and the "Aprocrypha." If there are a lot of them, and if they touch on important issues crucial to the substance of Christianity, then this would raise serious questions about the trustworthiness of Christianity.
The Old Testament. There are thirty-nine books in the English version of the Protestant Old Testament. Thirty-four of these belong to the Homologoumena--that is, they are considered by virtually all scholars to be canonical. The five over which there was some dispute, the Antilegomena, are (i) the Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs), (ii) Ecclesiastes, (iii) Esther, (iv) Ezekiel, and (v) Proverbs. A more detailed discussion of the specific issues associated with each book is given in Geissler and Nix (1986, pages 258ff.)
It is generally reckoned that there are fifteen books that belong to the category of the "Apocrypha." Here the Roman Catholic Church differs from the Hebrew canon and Protestant Old Testament canon (which are the same) by including eleven (or twelve, if one counts Baruch as being separate from the Letter of Jeremiah) of these fifteen in the Old Testament canon. Most of these books were written in the "intertestamental period," from about 400 B.C. to the opening of the New Testament canon in the first century. It should be noted that none of these books were ever seriously considered by the Jewish community as inspired. Indeed, it was widely held by the Jewish community that the line of prophets had come to an end after Malachi's time (approximately 400 B.C.)
For example, Josephus, the noted Jewish historian, states that the prophets wrote from Moses to Artaxerxes (a contemporary of Malachi), and then he adds, "It is true our history hath been written since Artaxerxes... but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of the prophets since that time (quoted in Geissler and Nix, 1986, p. 271)." Likewise, the Talmud, a Jewish commentary on the Scriptures, writes, "After the latter prophets Haggai, Zechariah,...and Malachi, the Holy Spirit departed Israel (quoted in Geissler and Nix, 1986, p. 27 1)."
The New Testament. The same fourfold categorization of Homologoumena, Antilegomena, Apocrypha, and Pseudepigrapha can be made for the New Testament books. Key to the acceptance of a New Testament book as canonical was the recognition that the book manifested apostolic authority; that is, that it was written or, confirmed by the ministry of the apostles.
Twenty of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are generally accepted by all to belong to the New Testament canon. These include all the books from Matthew to Philemon, plus I Peter and I John. The set of books over which there was some question of canonicity (the Antilegomena) consist of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation. In most cases, doubts were raised about these books because there was uncertainty about the authorship of the books.
Part of the problem in confirming authorship lay in the fact that--unlike the Old Testament books that were received by a localized community of Jewish believers--the New Testament community of believers was dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. Persecutions, as well as transportation and communication obstacles, impeded the circulation of writings across the far-flung communities of believers. Some books that were considered canonical in the eastern part of the Roman empire were not well known in the western part of the empire, and vice versa. Thus, it took time to sort through the evidences in favor of authenticity. The process culminated in the major councils of Hippo (393 A.D.), Carthage (397 A.D.), and again in Carthage (419 A.D.). All three councils agreed to the same set of books in setting the New Testament canon.
The most seriously considered books among the Aprocrypha are the Epistle of PseudoBarnabas, the Epistle to the Corinthians, the Second Epistle of Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, and the Seven Epistles of Ignatius. However, in the end, none of these books enjoyed any more than a temporary or local recognition. Most importantly, no church council included them as inspired books of the New Testament because, upon investigation, their prophetic genuineness could not be established.
In summary, the Bible can be viewed as the culmination of a series of divine interventions in human history by which God revealed specific messages to man. Prior to the birth of Christ, these revelations by God provided a continuous record from the time of Moses to the time of Artaxerxes (approximately 400 B.C.). Then for a period of approximately 400 years there were no prophets in the land of Israel, and no direct revelation from God. The Old Testament canon was closed. Then came the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, who told his disciples that after he left, "the Counselor, the Holy Spirit ... will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you (John 14:26)." And God initiated a new period of revelation by sending forth prophets who would lay the scriptural foundation for the New Testament (or new covenant) He was making with man. Once this foundation was laid, the New Testament canon was closed. It is only through these supernatural revelations that man is able to know what God is really like.
With respect to the trustworthiness of the Bible, it is only fair to say that there has been some dispute about the precise composition of the books which contain the inspired revelation from God. The most general conclusion one can draw from this is that the major doctrines of the Christian faith solidly lie within the set of the Homologoumena--the books virtually all Bible scholars agree represent direct revelation from God. Further, over time, as scholars have focused their efforts on the relatively small set of disputed books, there has been a general concurrence with the early church councils that the 66 books contained in our Bible represent the complete record of inspired writings that God intended for man to read and study.
REFERENCES
Comfort, Philip Wesley, editor. The Origin of the Bible. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 1992. ISBN: 0-8423-4735-6.
Geisler, Norman and William Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody Press, 1986. ISBN: 0-8024-2916-5.