The 5 ^th Step: The Biblical Canon and Councils

It seemed the more I investigated the more information I uncovered that clearly contradicted and nullified the notion of an 'inerrant' and 'inspired' Bible. This was true also of my research into the compilation of the biblical canon. "Contrary to common belief, there was never a one-time, truly universal decision as to which books should be included in the Bible. It took over a century of the proliferation of numerous writings before anyone bothered to start picking and choosing, and then it was largely a cumulative, individual and happenstance event, guided by chance and prejudice more than objective and scholarly research. With such a mélange of often contradictory texts, priests and academics began pronouncing what was authoritative and holy and what was not, but even they were not unanimous. Every church had its favorite books, and since there was nothing like a clearly-defined orthodoxy until the 4th century, there were many simultaneous literary traditions and often different versions of the same text" (Carrier, see below). The notion that the compilation of the Bible was a 'straight-forward' affair is mistaken and false. It took centuries and, in the end, the ruling body of the church propogated only those texts it deemed favorable while destroying those (or failing to copy) those that opposed its views.

Throughout the years I've done informal surveys of several Christians I've known and asked them what they could tell me about the biblical canon. Not unsurprisingly, most were uncertain what the canon was, what it referenced, or in what context the word was even used. It's one thing to indiscriminately believe in the legitimacy, authority, and supernatural inspiration of the Bible, it's another to know how it was actually composed and put together. That would entail doing some independent study and research, spending time with books, roaming through the library, or building your own research library.

The word canon is derived from the Greek word kanon and the Hebrew qaneh. It's basic meaning is 'reed' and our English word 'cane' was derived from it. Since a reed was sometimes used as a measuring rod (e.g., a yard stick), the word 'kanon' came to mean a standard or rule.

The biblical canon is a list of books written during the formative period of the Jewish and Christian faiths, which hold these books to be 'inspired' by God and to express the historical relationship between the god Yahweh and "his" chosen people. How which books were determined to be 'inspired' and which were not, how these books eventually found their way into the Old and New Testaments, and how other books are considered canonical by some religious groups but not by others, is a distinctly human-influenced history that remains unknown to most Christians. But why? If the Bible is the 'inerrant' and 'inspired' Word of God as they claim shouldn't Christians also know how it actually came to be?

The Old Testament Canon

The Old Testament was originally the religious record of only the Jewish people who considered it a collection of their sacred writings (the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh). Part of the confusion between the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian churchs as to what books actually constitute the canon stems from the Jewish biblical tradition itself.

We know that the earliest edition of the Hebrew Bible consisted of only the Torah (or Pentateuch). Up to around 400 BCE these five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) constituted what was considered 'Scripture'. [This does not mean that, in its present form, these five are the oldest in the Bible. Most biblical scholars are of the opinion that the Book of Amos is the oldest literary work in the Old Testament (probably composed around 760 BCE)] We know this due to an accident of history. The Samaritan sect broke away from orthodox Judaism around 400 BCE and to this day only recognize the Torah (Pentateuch) as sacred scripture, meaning the other books that comprise the Old Testament were awared canonical status only after 400 BCE. The books of the "Prophets" (Nevi'im) were accepted as canonical around 200 BCE, while the books of the "Writings" (Ketuvim) became so around 90 CE.

The Septuagint

The Jews of the diaspora, who fled Judah after the fall of Jerusalem 586 BCE (Babylonian Captivity), were widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean and the middle east. A significant segment of these had chosen Alexandria in Egypt as their home. By the fourth century BCE the Jews there had largely lost much of their capability to communicate in or understand their original tongue, Hebrew. They adopted the language of the area, which was Greek. The need to understand their religious roots was strong and so the Hebrew Bible (then consisting only of the Torah) was translated into Greek. This translation was called the Septuagint.

The story of how the Greek translation of the Bible came to be called such can be found in The Letter of Aristeas. The document, which purports to have been written around 250 BCE by Aristeas, an official at the court of King Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 BCE). The letter was written by Aristeas to his brother, Philocrates, to explain how the Torah came to be translated in Greek. King Ptolemy was a great patron of literature and it was he who inaugurated the great Library of Alexandria, one of the world's cultural wonders. According to the letter, King Ptolemy wanted a translation of the Jewish Law and sent Aristeas to Jerusalem to meet the high priest, Eleazar. Having been lavished with fabulous gifts from the visiting delegation, the high priest chose as translators six elders from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. These seventy two scholars were then sent to Alexandria where they labored for seventy two days on the island of Pharos translating the Bible. At the end of seventy two days, seventy two voices shouted "Amen!" and seventy two translations were completed. When they compared their translations with each other they found complete agreement among them, proving that the work was done under God's inspiration. From their number, came the word Septuaginto, which is Latin for 'Seventy'. The Septuagint is also sometimes referred to by the roman numeral for seventy: LXX.

The Letter of Aristeas reads like a myth because it is a myth. It's a forgery. It was not even written during the reign of King Ptolemy. Most scholars believe that it was written around 100 BCE by a Jewish apologist in Alexandria. Probably the only truth that can be derived from the 'letter' was that the Torah was translated into Greek for the benefit of Greek speaking Jews during the third century BCE. For the rest of the Greek Old Testament, henceforth together with the Pentateuch called the Septuagint, internal evidence suggests that it was the work of many different translators working in many different places at different times.

It is important to note that the Septuagint was the Bible to the early Christians and to the authors of the New Testament. It was to the Septuagint that the gospel writers looked for prophecies and allusions to the coming of Jesus Christ, a fact that takes on great significance because many of these so-called 'prophecies' were based on Greek mistranslations of the original Hebrew (as the supposed virgin birth 'prophecy' of Isaiah 7:14).

The arrangement of the Christian Old Testament is taken from the Septuagint, which differs substantially from the Hebrew Bible. The arrangement of books led naturally to the questions of canonicity. The books today referred to as the Apocrypha are included in the Septuagint but omitted from the Hebrew Bible. In the Greek Bible, these books are in no way differentiated from the rest of the "canonical" books, an obvious testament to the translators' and users' belief in their canonicity.

The Masoretic Text

In 70 CE Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans following the Great Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE). At this time the Jews lost their most important icon, the Temple itself. It was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. To save their religion, the Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai from the Hillel school in the Pharisaic party, obtained permission from the Romans to rebuild the Sanhedrin on a spiritual basis in Jamnia. There a 'synod' or meeting in 90 CE was held in which the extent of the Hebrew canon was debated. The books of the apocrypha and the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon had their canonicity debated. Some of the books in the apocrypha were rejected because they were extent only in Greek. However, other books, such as I Maccabees existed in Hebrew as well as Greek. The reason for its rejection was more on pragmatic than religious grounds. I Maccabees described the revolt led by the Maccabean family against the Syrian king, Antiochus Ephiphanes (died 163 BCE) who attacked Jerusalem and pillaged the Temple in 167 BCE. The rabbis in Jamnia were in no mood to promote a book about revolt so soon after their own failed revolt against the Romans. Thus, I Maccabees was excluded from the canon. The Song of Solomon, an overtly sexual book, was accepted solely on the tradition that it was written by King Solomon. Jewish and Christians theologians have, ever since then been forced to interpret the book allegorically to give the book some semblance of religiousness. The debate played a major role in deciding the twenty four books of the Hebrew Canon which coincided with the thirty nine books of the Christian Old Testament.

Around the end of the first century CE, there were many slightly different renditions of the Hebrew scriptures around. It was also around this time that a certain textual tradition was selected as the norm or authoritative text for all time. Thus this standard text was not based on any scientific or critical study on the many extant manuscripts of the scriptures. This text eventually became known as the Masoretic Text (Hebrew: masorah = 'tradition'). Although the earliest extent manuscript of the Masoretic Text today is very late (916 CE), all the evidence we have, based on fragments that predates this oldest manuscript, point to the fact that the text remain practically unaltered since the time of the synod at Jamnia. Standard translations of the English Old Testament are still based on the Masoretic Text (although the arrangement of the books themselves is based on the Septuagint). Apart from the differences in books considered canonical, the Masoretic Text differs from the Septuagint in the actual textual content as well.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

In 1947 scrolls were discovered in caves associated with the ruined buildings belonging to a Jewish religious community destroyed by the Romans during the first century CE. The location of the find, Qumran, close to the Dead Sea, gave the findings its name: the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls include fragments representing every book in the Old Testament except the Book of Esther. The scrolls were the first pre-Masoretic text in Hebrew ever discovered. Some readings in the scrolls were more closely related to the Septuagint version, others were closer to the Masoretic, while still others differ from both the Septuagint and the Masoretic. The obvious conclusion from this is that the text in today's Bible is just one of many variations that existed in the past. What does it mean, therefore, when Christian doctrine claims the Bible is the inerrant, unalterable, and inspired Word of God?

The Christian Old Testament Canon

The Christian Old Testament has never been settled. To this day the various denominations still cannot agree as to what books make up the Old Testament. In other words, they could not agree which books were "inspired by the Holy Spirit" and which were simply inspired by the human spirit. This problem has long roots:

Saint Jerome and the Vulgate

Perhaps one of the most influential Church Fathers was Eusebius Hieronymous (340-420 CE), better known as Saint Jerome. Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus (304-384) to write an authoritative translation of the Bible into Latin. As part of his preparation, Jerome went to Palestine and studied Hebrew under the Jewish scholars. The Jewish scholars showed him their canon and Jerome, not knowing much about the background of their selection, was impressed with their arguments. It was Jerome who introduced the term apocrypha (απόκρυφα, Greek for ' hidden') for the extra books in the Septuagint not included in the Hebrew canon. Jerome tried to persuade the Roman Church to reject the Apocrypha but without any success. Jerome worked on the translation for fifteen years and finally produced the version known as the Vulgate (vulgata = Latin for 'widespread'). The Vulgate included the books from the Apocrypha. The difference in opinion between the Roman Church and Jerome regarding what constitute canonicity was to be repeated throughout the history of Christendom. [See The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone]

The Evolution of the Old Testament Canon

New Testament References to Non-Canonical Texts

This problem is further compounded when we turn to references to the Old Testament by the New Testament authors. The epistle of Jude, for instance, quotes passages, as though they were authoritative from a book that is today not even included in the apocrypha! The book Jude was quoting from is called the book of Enoch [b]. This book was once regarded as proper scripture but was finally lost to the Christian Church. Here is the passage from Jude:

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him." — Jude 1:14-15

This is a direct quotation from I Enoch 1:9.

In Jude 1:9, we see another reference to a non-canonical book that is outside the Apocrypha, The Assumption of Moses.

But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him but said "The Lord rebuke you!" — Jude 1:9

Note that Jude wrote as though the verses were authoritative, he did not question the fact the Enoch prophecies may be false or that the event regarding the archangel fighting the devil may be fiction. He mention them as fact, the way a fundamentalist Christian would do today quoting from the Bible.

Another New Testament book, the Epistle to the Hebrews, quotes a passage from another book, The Martyrdom of Isaiah, that is outside the Christian canon:

They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. — Hebrews 11:37

The obvious lack of agreement between the various Christian churches, and indeed among the early Christians, as to which books were written under the 'inspiration' of the Holy Spirit, and are thus canonical, shows that there is no clear cut definition of what constitutes 'sacred' scripture.

Appropriated & Adapted from: The Rejection of Pascal's Wager: A Skeptic's Guide to Christianity

The New Testament Canon

Richard Carrier's first-rate survey and analysis of the formation of the New Testament canon succinctly says everything I discovered during the course of my own canon research. Rather than resort to redundancy I defer to its superiority and link directly to it here (from the Secular Web Library):

Summary of the Formation of the The New Testament Canon

After introducing ourselves to the earliest extant manuscripts of the New Testament, we can ask the same questions we did concerning the Old Testament: How did the books in the New Testament came to be regarded as canonical? What about the books that were excluded? What were their reasons for exclusion?

The first generations of the Church fathers such as Ignatius (35 - 107 CE), Papias (60 - 130 CE) and Justin Martyr (100 - 165 CE) were more concerned with the canon of the Old Testament than that of the New. One reason, of course, is that they could appeal to the living oral tradition that surrounded them. Another reason is that some of the New Testament books were not yet written during their lifetimes!

In fact the impetus towards providing a definitive list of canonical books for the New Testament came from a heretic * named Marcion (died 160). He was a native of Sinope in Asia Minor who made his way to Rome in 140 CE and began preaching what he believed to be the original good news. Expelled from the church of Rome around 144, he taught that much of early Christian literature was corrupted by Jewish ideas. Marcion accepted only the letters of Paul (Galatians, I Corinthians & II Corinthians, Romans, I Thessalonians & II Thessalonians, Laodiceans, Colossians, Philemon and Philippians) and a 'purified' version of Luke's gospel. Marcion's teaching was immensely popular and he became an immediate concern for his rivals. [* Terms such as 'heretic' and 'orthodox' are retroactive. In the lifetimes of these figures involved, every party calls itself the orthodox and labels every other as heretics. We will come through this term heretic many times in this website applied to Christian scholars who lost the theological battle for survival. Hence, to the uninitiated, reading the history of Christian theology, it would seem as if the orthodox party always triumphed against the heretic. Whereas, in reality, heretics simply means 'losers in the theological battle'.]

Irenaeus (c. 130 - 202 CE), Bishop of Hippo, argued against Marcion's inclusion of only one gospel with a curious piece of logic: "As there are four winds, there should therefore be four gospels." Satisfied with this logically ruthless demolition of Marcion, Irenaeus drew up a list of writings he considered canonical. His list consisted of 22 books of which 21 are present in today's New Testament. But noteworthy are the books he left out: Philemon, II Peter, II John & III John, Hebrews and Jude. Interestingly, his list included a book no longer present in the New Testament—The Shepherd of Hermas. Thus the first formal list of canonical books drawn up in the second half of the second century (around 180 CE) does not completely tally with the modern canon.

The next list came from the so-called Muratorian Fragment, discovered in Milan by L.A. Muratori who published it in 1740. The fragment is dated to around 200 CE. The fragment presents a list of what its author considered to be 'inspired' or canonical books. The list rejects The Shepherd of Hermas, saying that it was a recent book. One of the books it did add to the canonical list does not inspire confidence in the believer. It is a book very few Christians know of today and is called The Apocalypse of Peter. Again we find some books in today's canon missing from the Muratorian Fragment: I Peter & II Peter, Hebrews, James and III John. The exclusion of the epistles of Peter is remarkable for a Roman document (if Peter did indeed die in Rome and indeed wrote the epistle attributed to him). The exclusion of the epistles of Hebrew and James, both of which are known in Rome at least a century before the list is curious.

The next canonical list came from Origen (c. 185 - 254) who in 230 CE defined what he believed to be the canon of scripture for the New Testament. He included the four gospels, Acts, Paul's thirteen epistles, I Peter, I John and Revelation. He also mentioned that the following books were under dispute: Hebrews, II Peter, II John & III John, James, Jude, the Epistle of Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the Gospel According to the Hebrews. The last four books are no longer in the canon today.

We have now reached the period of the uncial script. In the extent manuscripts that we have, the disagreements as to which books should be included in the New Testament and which should be excluded are evident here as well. We find in Codex Sinaiticus the inclusion of The Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. Both works were placed in the codex that in no way showed that the compiler wanted them to be separated from the rest. The Codex Alexandrinus contains the two Epistles of Clement, written by Clement, Bishop of Rome, to the Corinthian Church around 95 CE.

We can conclude then,

• that by the beginning of the fourth century, some books that are now included in the New Testament canon had their canonicity disputed.
• Some books who were in the same boat with these somehow never got accepted as canonical. These disputed books were: Hebrews, Revelation, the epistles of James, II Peter, II John & III John, The Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Epistles of Clement.

Then a process that can be called 'religious forgery' started to occur. Books which somehow managed to attach themselves to the names of apostles (the tradition of apostolic authorship rears its ugly head again) were eventually thought to be 'inspired' based solely on the 'fact' of such attachments. Hebrews was attributed to Paul; Revelation, II John, and III John to John the apostle, the epistles of James and Jude to the brothers of Jesus; and the epistles of Peter to Simon Peter himself. We know today, based on critical textual and documentary research, that these attributions are false. Most of the books that were left out never had the luck to strongly attach themselves to the names of apostles and were thus not included. So the inclusion of some of the books in the New Testament was based solely on the fraudulent belief in apostolic authorship. In should be mentioned here that in no way were the books that finally became canonical invariably written earlier than the non-canonical ones. Thus the non-canonical Didache, I Clement and the Epistle of Barnabas all date to the second half of the first century, while the canonical II Peter and Jude dates to the middle of the second century.

In fact the first list of all the 27 books of the New Testament to the exclusion of all others appeared in the Festal Letter written by Athanasius (c. 296 - 373 CE), Bishop of Alexandria to the Egyptian Churches in 367. In this Easter letter, Athanasius told his bishops that these twenty seven books are to be regarded as canonical. Athanasius' list was confirmed by a council under Pope Damasus in 382. However many churches in the east continued to disagree with the Athanasian canon. The book of Revelation, for instance, was not considered divinely inspired until well into the eighth century. We find in Codex Claromontanus, a sixth century manuscript, that the Hebrews was omitted from it while the Epistle of Barnabas was included and placed between the epistle of Jude and Revelation.

Even today we find some Christian churches, with very old roots, have different books in the New Testament. The East-Syrian Nestorian Church has a canon with only 22 books. The canon excludes II Peter, II John, III John, Jude, and Revelation from their New Testament. The Ethiopian Church have thirty eight books in their New testament and includes in their list of canonical books the Shepherd of Hermas, I Clement & II Clement and the Apostolic Constitutions.

What can we conclude about the New Testament canon? We find that:

• The New Testament canon was by no means universally accepted by all Christians since the beginning.
• Books that were accepted by some churches as canonical were rejected by others as uninspired.
• False tradition of apostolic authorship helped many of the books that eventually became included in the canon.
• Ludicrous arguments, a la Ireneaus and his "four winds therefore four gospels" logic, played a role in the acceptance and rejection of the various books.
• Even today there is still disagreement as to what constitutes the New Testament canon.
  

We see that the making of canon of New Testament books was in no way 'miraculous' or 'inspired' but betrays its human origins.

Appropriated & Adapted From: The Rejection of Pascal's Wager: A Skeptic's Guide to Christianity

In regards to the New Testament canon, Bart D. Ehrman provides the following points as summary in The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings [p. 13]:

1. Early Christianity was extremely diverse. It was not the unified monolith that modern people sometimes assume.
2. This diversity was manifest in a wide range of writings, only some of which have come down to us in the New Testament.
3. The New Testament canon was formed by proto-orthodox Christians who wanted to show that their views were grounded in the writings of Jesus' own apostles.
4. Whether these writings actually represent the views of Jesus' own apostles, however, was in some instances debated for decades, even centuries.

The Seven Ecumenical Councils

From the earliest history of evolving Christianity there was controversy over disputed theological questions. Among these none occupied greater attention than the nature of God and the divinity of Jesus. Some held to the singular unity of God ('unitarianism' or 'nontrinitarianism') while others proclaimed a triune Godhead ('trinitarianism') that consisted of Yahweh, Jesus, and the Paraclete ('Father, Son, Holy Spirit').

Those holding the first view were nearly successful in making it the dogma of the whole Church. They were especially strong in the West. They were called Arians, after their leader Arius (later Socinians and Unitarians). At the Emperor Constantine's urging, the Council of Nice (the first Ecumenical Council of the Church) was held in the city of that name in southeastern France, to consider and argue to two questions: the canon of the Bible, and the 'Arian Controversy' as the question of the Godhead was then called. This council condemned Arius' doctrines and sent him into exile where he died suddenly and mysteriously. Although poisoning was suspected, church leaders (particularly Athanasius) charged it was God himself who struck Arius dead in answer to their prayers.

For further research, see:

Perhaps the most important factor in the growth and spread of early Christianity was the Roman Emperor Constantine's legalization, legitimizations, and conversion (or 'adoption' as his 'imperial cult') to Christianity. Without his royal power and influence, his edicts and political actions (e.g., Edict of Milan), his insistence of unifying Christian doctrine through ecumenical councils, Christianity likely would have been broken apart by schism, doctrinal in-fighting, resurgency, persecution, and a thousand discordant sects each proclaiming their own interpretation of Christ and the Godhead. This 'Constantinian Shift' was highly efficacious in identificating Christianity and the (Christian interpretation) of the Will of God with the State. This phenomenon, known as Caesaropapism, made Christianity little more than a religious justification for the exercise of power and a tool in the expansion and maintenance of a Christian empire (called Christendom). Saint Augustine (Augustine of Hippo), who originally had rejected violence in religious matters, later justified it theologically in the case of heretics such as the Donatists, who themselves violently harassed their opponents. Before him, Athanasius believed that violence was justified in weeding out heresies that could damn all future Christians. This continued a line of thought started by Athanasius who felt that any means was justified in repressing the Arian heresy. In 385, Priscillian, a bishop in Spain, was the first Christian to be executed for heresy, though the most prominent church leaders rejected this verdict. The Constantinian shift also represents that point at which membership in the Christian church became associated with citizenship rather than a personal decision (not unlike the conservative advancement today of the United States as a "Christian Nation" that seeks to associate itself with patriotism, loyalty, and the "American way of life").

• The Formation of Christian Biblical Canon: Revised and Expanded Edition by Lee Martin McDonald Essential reading regarding NT canon!
• The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce M. Metzger
• The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History by Dennis C. Duling and Norman Perrin
• The Canon Debate by Lee Martin McDonald (Editor)
• The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition by James A. Sanders
• Torah and Canon by James A. Sanders
• Introduction to the Old Testament: From Its Origins to the Closing of the Alexandrian Canon by J. Alberto Soggin
• From Sacred Story to Sacred Text by James A. Sanders
• Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism by James Barr
• The Scope and Authority of the Bible by James Barr
• The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon by John Barton
• Holy Writings, Sacred Text: The Canon in Early Christianity by John Barton
• Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study by John Barton
• The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman
• The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon by Arthur G. Patzia
• The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology by Leo Donald Davis
• The General Councils: A History of the Twenty-One Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II by Christopher M. Bellitto
• Amos: The Prophet and His Oracles: Research on the Book of Amos by M. Daniel Carroll R.
• Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos by Shalom M. Paul
• The Theologico-Political Treatise by Benedict de Spinoza

• Biblical Canon (Wikipedia)
• Council of Jamnia (Wikipedia)
• Old Testament Apocrypha (Wikipedia)
• Masoretic Text (Wikipedia)
• The Samaritan Pentateuch (Wikipedia)
• Pauline Epistles (Wikipedia)
• Authorship of the Pauline Epistles (Wikipedia)
• Non-Canonical Books Referenced in the Bible (Wikipedia)
• Ecumenical Councils (Wikipedia)
• Gnosticism (Wikipedia)
• Gnosticism (IEP)
• Gnosticism (Catholic Encyclopedia)
• Gnosticism (Jewish Encyclopedia)
• Gnosticism (Religious Tolerance)
• Introduction to Gnosticism
• Gnostics, Gnostic Gospels, & Gnosticism (Early Christian Writings)
• Proto-Gnostic Elements in the Gospel According to John
• The Judas Gospel (National Geographic)
  • Gnosticism
• The Development of the Canon of the New Testament
• The Canon of Scripture
• The Formation of the New Testament Canon
• The Canon of the Bible (Larry Taylor)
• Development of the (Old Testament) Canon (Gerald Larue)
• The Hebrew Canon (RPW)
• The Christian Old Testament Canon (RPW)
• Codex Sinaiticus (British Library)
• Texts, Manuscripts, and Translations (Gerald Larue)
• The Formation of the New Testament Canon (Richard Carrier)
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Canon of the Old Testament
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Canon of the New Testament
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Bible Canon
• Early Christian Writings
• Bible Research
• Tanakh ML Project
• The Gnostic Archive (Gnosis.org)
  • Library
  • Nag Hammadi Library
  • The Gospel of Thomas Collection
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls Collection
• Hypertext Bible Dictionary
• Amos: Hypertext Bible Commentary
• The Origin and Nature of the Samaritans and their Relationship to Second Temple Jewish Sects
• Israelite Religion to Judaism: the Evolution of the Religion of Israel
• Irenaeus: Against Heresies
• The Samaritan Pentateuch
• Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church
• Canons of the Seven Ecumenical Councils