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Thank you very much for the history and background. I haven't thought before of there being "reasons" for the writing of the Gospels, or the whole NT. I suppose I have always just thought that God wanted to reveal His word in written form, therefore the Bible came into being. It has never occurred to me that men individually decided to write their works, and then other men put them together into the book we use, as if, we are "fortunate" that it turned out that way. The NT is inerrant and good, but it came to be more by happenstance than necessity, or God's will. That is the impression I have so far of one view. How would you describe your view on this?

This also opens up an issue I have never thought of before. If it was man's decision to write and put together the Bible, and if the Bible is an inspired work, then were all the writings of the authors of the Bible inspired? It doesn't make sense to me that everything Paul EVER wrote since his conversion made its way into the Bible. Therefore, are there "lost" writings that really do belong in the Bible?

were all the writings of the authors of the Bible inspired?

Pure speculation on my part. In fact, two speculations.

It is clear from numerous places in the Bible that it pleased God to disclose the scripture to us. It is most visible in the Grand Commission at the end of all gospels to go and teach all the nations. It was not the will of God then to create hidden scripture, even less so a lost scripture. We must conclude, it seems, that God prevented any inspired work form being lost.

Sainthood is a permanent and indelible mark: once a saint, always a saint. Likewise, Holy Orders makes one a priest for life. Not so divine office. A priest enters, by the graces of the Church, a state when he performs the miracle of the Mass or other sacraments. But a priest is not endowed by a supernatural quality as his nature, like some shaman. Consequently, not everything he does is supernatural, he is but a man capable of error and sin. It seems to me that an ability to minister to others is an act that men perform by the power of the office rather than by their nature. So, the ability to write inspired scripture is a priestly act that comes from a divinely ordained task; it is not a power that is permanently installed in St. Paul, or the Evangelists, or Moses. It is therefore possible that these holy men wrote things outside of the corpus of the inspired scripture, that were subsequently lost. In fact, in the case of St. John, prior to the canonization of the Apocalypse the mind of the Church was that St. John wrote several inspired books, and at least one possibly not inspired. I don't know if the arguments for canonization of the Apocalypse based simply on the fact that the Gospel of John is inspired, were ever made, but clearly even if they were, they did not carry the day for the Apocalypse.

"Thank you very much for the history and background. I haven't thought before of there being "reasons" for the writing of the Gospels, or the whole NT."

If I might interject a comment here. The Scriptures often indicate that they were written for specific reasons. For example:

" Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1: 1-4)

Here we see that Luke is compiling the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles with a very specific purpose in mind, in fact, it appears that it was originally written for a single person, Theophilus.

The human authors of Sacred Scripture seem to have had a purpose in mind when they wrote. Another example is St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon. The Apostle writes on behalf of an escaped slave, Onesimus, to Philemon, who apparently had held authority over Onesimus."

"I suppose I have always just thought that God wanted to reveal His word in written form, therefore the Bible came into being."

If you remove the "just", I think everyone would be on the same page with you. The Scriptures were revealed by the will of God, and the human authors acted under divine Inspiration. This is the understanding that we Christians have received from the Church. (The Scriptures themselves do not tell us this, rather it is the Church. I would say that, off hand, only the Revelation to John tells us that it is divinely revealed.

Incidently, you and I still rely on the Church, however, to tell us that the Revelation to John is Scriptural. It is not an obvious point in and of itself. Martin Luther, for example, is said to have believed that the Revelation to John was not Scriptural. Clearly he was in a higher class as a Scripture scholar than I am, but he nonetheless rejected books that you and I consider Scriptural.

"The NT is inerrant and good, but it came to be more by happenstance than necessity, or God's will."

No one here believes that the New Testament came to be by accident. Rather, God worked through the human authors working within His Church to create the individual books of Scripture, and He worked through His Church to canonize and preserve the Scriptures. We also believe that he works through the Church to preserve and develop the understanding of the Scriptures. We do not believe that the preservation of the Church or the Bible occurred by "happenstance."

" It doesn't make sense to me that everything Paul EVER wrote since his conversion made its way into the Bible. "

Forest Keeper, it appears to me that not everything Paul wrote made it into the Bible:

"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." (1 Cor 5: 9-13)

Here we have the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians and referencing a previous letter that he has written them. Since this is the first letter to the Corinthians, it is reasonable to assume that St. Paul had written them a previous letter, "0 Corinthians" and that this letter has been lost to us. (One alternative hypothesis are that 1 Corinthians was edited, and contains several Pauline letters were cut and pasted together, and hence both letters are in fact represented in 1 Cor. Another is that St. Paul is referencing another letter that was addressed to another Church. Both theories are speculative, and I think, forced.)

All of Orthodox theology contains an element of "synergia" -- God acting, inspiring, and guiding, and man cooperating.

It is clear that man does not always act in synergia with God. When St. Peter was drifting into Judaizing and teaching things that were doctrinally wrong in that regard, St. Paul confronted him on this. So had St. Peter written down those particular teachings that St. Paul confronted him on and corrected him on, they would self-evidently not have been Scriptural.

In Orthodoxy, you will generally find a "both-and" approach. St. Luke's Gospel and his writing of the Acts were both a specific response to a requested account by Theophilus *and* they were written because God wanted them to be written, and to be written in that way.

Likewise, the compiling of the Scriptures into a definitive canon is the result of the inspiration of men by God. This was both the result of the leaders of the early church realizing that they needed to expend effort and care to discern between true and false writings *and* the result of the Holy Spirit guiding that process.

This entire process is a great mystery, and the resulting Scriptures are the words of eternal life, like no other writings that ever were or ever will be again.