[jboot]

The argument that the canon is authentic because the Church says so is a simple "appeal to authority" logical fallacy that irrespective of the truth isn't going to pass muster these days even in the Catholic Church. That book sounds like an interesting read and may give me some more tools.

When "The Gospel of Judas" came out there were so many confused people in my church that I dropped my whole curriculum for a month to address the formation of the canon. We went down a lot of rabbit trails, because it turned out that most of my class (pius, fire-baptised, tithing Baptist adults, no less) had been thoroughly marinated in Dan Brown's conspiracy theories. It was fun, and most of them came away with a greater respect for the Bible.

[CTrent1564]

jboot:

And as you went down those trails, at what point did you determine the Church decided on the NT canon. In other words, where in History after the Death of the last Apostle, i.e John [circa 90AD] did you find that the Early Church had agreed on the 27 book NT canon that we have today.