What is the Bible's authority?
When we speak of the “canon of Scripture,” we are referring to those books that the church has recognized as the authoritative Word of God. Thus, although a formal distinction can be made between canon and authority, they are closely related. Specifically, books that the church has recognized as canonical are those that are recognized as having divine authority (F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments, p. 95). Therefore, we can first note the testimony of the Scripture concerning its own authority.
First, the OT itself witnesses to its own authority. This is seen especially instances where the words of Scripture are said to come directly from the Lord. Both the Mosaic Law (for examples, cf. Exod 4:30; Deut 18:21, 22; Lev 4:1, 5:1) and later parts of the OT use phrases such as, “The LORD has spoken,” “The mouth of the LORD has spoken,” or “The word of the LORD came to saying” (Josh 24:2; Isa 8:11; Jer 7:l; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 26:1; 27:1; 30:1,4; 50:1; 51:12; Amos 3:1).
The NT also witnesses to the authority of the OT. In Matt 22:43, Jesus refers to Psalm 2 and says that David wrote “in the Spirit.” The Apostles witnessed to the Spirit-inspired authority of the OT in Acts 4:24-25: “And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?” In 2 Tim 3:16-17, Paul recognizes the authority and inspiration of the OT: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
Also, parts of the NT recognize the authority of other NT books. Peter considered Paul’s writings to be Scripture in 2 Pet 3:15-16: “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” Paul cites both Deut 25:4 and Matt 10:10 in 1 Tim 5:18: “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’” This verse seems to consider both Deuteronomy and Matthew to be Scripture. There are even places where a NT writer recognizes the special authority of his own writing.
Paul speaks of his commandments as being from the Lord. 1 Cor 14:37 says, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.” Revelation 22:18-19 claims special authority, so much so that if anyone adds to it, he is damned: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”
However, not every book in our Bibles has these explicit endorsements of God-given authority, and the 66 books of the Protestant canon did not fall from heaven in a neatly bound bundle. Rather, the church slowly came to recognize which books were inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore authoritative.
This process differed in the reception of the OT and NT canon, therefore, the historical circumstances of each will be addressed separately. It is unclear exactly when what we now recognize as the 39 books of the OT were clearly recognized as a closed canon (in the Hebrew OT, these books are divided and arranged differently, making only 22 books).
In earlier generations, it was thought that a council of rabbis in Jamnia (modern Yavne, Israel) formally recognized the OT canon in the late first century A.D. This view is now doubted by most scholars; the recognition of the OT canon was probably a more gradual process (Carson and Moo, Introduction to the NT, 727-28). In any case, by the time the NT was written, the OT books were almost certainly recognized as a closed canon.
Furthermore, the writers of the NT clearly regard our 39 OT books as the established, authoritative canon of Scripture. Five observations support this:
1) The books that the NT writers cite as Scripture closely match the 39 books of the OT;
2) In those places where other books are cited (i.e., the Greek philosopher Cleanthes in Acts 17:28 or the pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch in Jude 14-15), they are never called Scripture or said to be inspired;
3) The NT writers never attempt to disregard or eliminate the authority of the OT books;
4) Although the NT writers may be arguing with the their Jewish contemporaries, they agree with them that the starting point of their arguments is the OT Scripture;
5) Jesus’ reference to martyrs from Abel to Zechariah son of Berekiah is probably a reference to the first and last books of the OT canon (according the common Jewish order, the first book is Genesis and the last 2 Chronicles) (see Carson and Moo, Introduction to the New Testament, pages 731-32).
Good evidence exists in the New Testament which shows that by the time of Jesus the canon of the Old Testament had been fixed. It cannot be questioned that Jesus and his apostles time after time quote from a distinctive body of authoritative writings. They designate them as “the Scripture” (John 7:38; Acts 8:32; Rom. 4:3), “the Scriptures” (Matt. 21:42; John 5:39; Acts 17:11), “the Holy Scriptures” (Rom. 1:2), “the Sacred Writings” (2 Tim. 3:15), and so forth. They often introduce their quotations with “it is written,” that is, it stands firmly written. If some writings were “Scripture,” others were not.
If some writings were canonical, others were non-canonical. Jesus had many disputes with the Pharisees over the proper interpretation of the Scriptures but we have no record of any dispute between Jesus and the Jews over the extent of the OT canon. There apparently was full agreement with what books were considered canonical Scripture. Jesus himself gives us some clear indications about the extent of the Old Testament canon. When applying the Scriptures and their fulfillment to himself, he speaks of “the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms” (Luke 24:44).
This threefold division is undoubtedly equivalent to the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Jews often refer to the Hebrew Scriptures as the Tanak, TaNaK, or 5 Tanakh. This term is an acronym for the titles of the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible: Torah“Law” Neviim-“Prophets” Ketuvim-“Writings.” Indeed, the newest standard Jewish English translation of the Bible published by the New Jewish Publication Society is called TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures.
On another occasion, Jesus not only alludes to the threefold arrangement but points to the books contained in this arrangement. He once spoke of the time “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary” (Luke 11:51; cf. Matt. 23:35), thus referring to the martyrs of the Old Testament. The first martyr of the Old Testament was Abel and the last martyr was Zechariah (2 Chron. 24:20-21).
The book of Chronicles is placed at the end of the Hebrew Bible. Therefore, the Old Testament Jesus knew was a collection of writings reaching from Genesis to Chronicles, with all the other books in between, a collection which embraces the same books as in our Old Testament today (Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, pp. 153-4). Josephus The first-century Jewish. Author: Mark Driscoll
