Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament

I’m currently teaching a New Testament course and I have been re-reading a lot of great material dealing with all aspects of New Testament studies. I’m re-reading—among other things—Curtis Mitch’s work. I thought this was especially well-written, and a good synthesis of modern scholarship. The excerpt below comes from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The New Testament, which Curtis Mitch co-edited with Scott Hahn. With regard to the traditional attributions of authorship of the four Gospels—i.e., that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, Luke wrote Luke, and John wrote John—Mitch writes the following:

“every extant Gospel text with a surviving title page includes a superscription with the name of the evangelist as given by tradition. If untitled Gospels ever existed, none has survived to confirm the assertion….Some would argue that the titles and traditions linked with the Gospels are historically unreliable. But if the Gospels were initially disseminated as anonymous works, and only decades later ideas about their origin began to crystallize and take hold throughout the Christian community, then we are left with a situation that is very difficult to explain. Not only are the names of the evangelists unanimously attested in the second century, but one is hard-pressed to account for why these names and not others were chosen and universally agreed upon. The apostle John may be thought an obvious choice to credit with a Gospel, given the extent of his influence in early Christianity. [But] why attribute the other Gospels to figures such as Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Even though Matthew was one of the Twelve, he appears only a few times in the New Testament and never in such a way that later generations would conclude that he was a figure of towering importance. Even more, it is unlikely that a Gospel addressed to readers from a Jewish background [at that time] would be attributed to a tax collector, since tax collectors were generally despised by Jews [of that time] as morally corrupt, ritually unclean, and politically traitorous. The problem is even more acute in the case of Mark and Luke, neither of whom was an apostle and neither of whom appears in the writings of the New Testament as a prominent authority figure in the earliest Christian community. If churchmen in the second century were merely speculating about the authorship of the Gospels, one might reasonably expect them to have preferred more illustrious personalities such as Peter or Paul. At the very least, one would expect more than one opinion to have made itself heard in the annals of Christian history.”¹

In a footnote, Mitch includes the following: “The Book of Hebrews provides a counterexample. Because its author is never identified in the book, and no name is supplied in its title, there was much speculation in the early centuries about who wrote it. No such speculation surrounded the authorship of the four Gospels.”²

I highly recommend the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. I use it weekly, sometimes daily.

1. Curtis Mitch, “Introduction to the Gospels,” in The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The New Testament, ed. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, xv-xxiii (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), xvi.
2. xvi n. 2.

Dr. Peter Williams of Tyndale House

This video is of Dr. Peter Williams of Tyndale House. He does a fantastic job in this 54 minute lecture, arguing for the historical reliability of the 4 canonical New Testament Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). He relies on old and more recent arguments (from scholars like Richard Bauckham and others). Williams is a cutting edge Protestant New Testament scholar who has done top notch scholarly work on the historical and linguistic background of the New Testament, and as well as work in Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic).

Thanks to Michael Bird for posting this on his blog.

I would recommend reading Richard Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, on this topic.

Just over a week ago, Dr. Michael Barber interviewed me on The Sacred Page radio show for a Catholic radio station. The interview pertained to my conversion to Catholicism and also to my research on the political roots of modern biblical criticism. Dr. Barber recently posted the podcast of the interview on the popular blog he co-authors, The Sacred Page. The podcast can be found here: http://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/09/tsp-episode-3-jeff-morrow-conversion.html

“There is a medicine for every disease, and when a skillful physician finds the medicine, the disease is healed. For those who are wounded in our battle, there is the medicine of penance, and those who put it on their wounds are healed. Physicians, you disciples of our wise Physician, take this medicine, and use it to heal the wounds of the sick. For warriors who are wounded in battle by someone who is fighting them find a skillful physician, and then they put themselves into his hands to be healed, so that he can make the wounded parts whole. And when a physician heals a man who was wounded in battle, the king gives him gifts and honors. So, beloved, when someone is struggling in our battle, and the enemy fights against him and wounds him, it is appropriate to give him the medicine of penance, when the wounded man’s repentance has grown great. For God does not reject the penitent: as Ezekiel the prophet said, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’ Now, whoever is wounded in battle is not ashamed to put himself in the hands of a skillful physician, so that he can be healed of the wounds he received in battle. And the king does not reject a man who has been healed, but considers him part of his army again. Likewise the man wounded by Satan should not be ashamed to confess his sin, and leave it behind, and beg for the medicine of penance. For gangrene comes if a man is ashamed to show his wound, and then the whole body is harmed. Whoever is not ashamed has his wound healed, and goes back to battle again; but if gangrene comes, he cannot be healed, and he cannot take up his arms again. So for anyone who has been overcome in our battle, this is the way he can be healed: he can say, ‘I have sinned,’ and ask for penance. But whoever is ashamed cannot be healed, because he will not reveal to the physician who earns two pennies where his wounds are, so that the physician can heal all of them.”¹

For Further Reading:

Hahn, Scott. Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession. New York: Doubleday, 2003.

Hahn, Scott. Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots. New York: Doubleday, 2009.

Shanks, Jason. “God is Too Hot to Handle: Protestant Misconceptions about Confession.” This Rock 11, no. 5-6 (May/June 2000).

1. Mike Aquilina, Roots of the Faith: From the Church Fathers to You (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger, 2010), 11-12.

Rembrandt's "The Return of the Prodigal Son"

As has been mentioned before, Lent is a great time to make a good confession. Especially as we rapidly approach Easter, there’s no better time than now to think about receiving the grace of that special sacrament. I was recently made aware of Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s Lenten letter on confession which he sent on St. Patrick’s Day, and I thought I would post the link to it here, and encourage everyone to read it, since it’s such a beautiful and timely piece on this great sacrament.

Archbishop Dolan’s Letter can be found here.

If you haven’t read Scott Hahn’s, Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession   you might want to pick that up and read it. Most importantly, go to that great sacrament of mercy. As Christians, we need to begin-again all the time, telling Jesus we’re sorry. The confessional is a privileged site for such mercy, and those who avail themselves of the sacrament frequently, know its rich benefits. Every act of contrition is a new beginning, and every confession is a welcome home.

Flinck's "The Return of the Prodigal Son"

Letter & Spirit

Here’s the journal’s contents for those of you who are interested:

The first section is composed of new articles:

Scott W. Hahn, “For the Sake of Our Salvation: The Truth and Humility of God’s Word.”

Brant Pitre, “The Mystery of God’s Word: Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the Interpretation of Scripture.”

Pablo T. Gadenz, “Magisterial Teaching on the Inspiration and Truth of Scripture: Precedents and Prospects.”

Michael Maria Waldstein, “Analogia Verbi: The Truth of Scripture in Rudolf Bultmann and Raymond Brown.”

John R. Betz, “Glory(ing) in the Humility of the Word: The Kenotic Form of Revelation in J.G. Hamann.”

Germain Gisez, “The Inspiration and Inerrancy of Scripture.”

Joseph C. Atkinson, “The Interpenetration of Inspiration and Inerrancy as a Hermeneutic for Catholic Exegesis.”

Brian W. Harrison, O.S., “Restricted Inerrancy and the ‘Hermeneutic of Discontinuity.’”

Robert L. Fastiggi, “Communal or Social Inspiration: A Catholic Critique.”

Jeffrey L. Morrow, “The Modernist Crisis and the Shifting of Catholic Views on Biblical Inspiration.”

Matthew Levering, “The Inspiration of Scripture: A Status Quaestionis.”

This section is followed by a catena of Catholic sources on Scripture’s divine inspiration, listing excerpts of passages from: Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, Pope John XXII, Pope Clement VI, the Council of Florence, the Council of Trent, Vatican I, Pope Leo XIII, Pope Benedict XV, Pope Pius XII, Vatican II, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In the final section, we have classic articles on this topic that have been reprinted here, including an article by Romano Guardini that is published here for the first time in English translation:

Thomas McGovern, “The Gospels as History.”

Joseph Hugh Crehan, S.J., “Verbum Dei Incarnatum and Verbum Dei Scriptum in the Fathers.”

Thomas F. Stransky, C.S.P., “‘As I Break Bread for You’: St. Augustine’s Method in Preaching.”

Peter Paul Zerafa, O.P., “The Limits of Biblical Inerrancy.”

Augustin Cardinal Bea, S.J., “Vatican II and the Truth of Sacred Scripture.”

Paul Cardinal Taguchi, “Sacred Scripture and the Errors of the ‘New’ Exegesis.”

Romano Guardini, “Holy Scripture and the Science of Faith.”

My favorite articles included Michael Waldstein’s, Fr. Pablo Gadenz’s, and Scott Hahn’s, but as I have come to expect from previous Letter & Spirit volumes I thoroughly enjoyed and learned from all of the entries. Waldstein’s masterful piece tackles the philosophical presuppositions inherent in both Rudolf Bultmann’s and Raymond Brown’s biblical exegesis. Waldstein situates their work within current debate about biblical inspiration. His voice is significant in this conversation not only because he studied at Harvard under a disciple of Bultmann, but also because Waldstein was the peritus (theological expert) at the 2008 synod on the Word of God assisting Cardinal Marc Ouellet the relator general of that synod.  Fr. Gadenz’s article walks through the history of the Church’s magisterial teaching on biblical inerrancy, situating Dei Verbum 11 in light of that history. Fr. Gadenz walks through the significant magisterial texts from the Councils of Florence, Trent, Vatican I and II, Popes Leo XIII, Benedict XV, Pius XII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI as well as magisterial documents from the Pontifical Biblical Commission and Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith including the 1905 Response of the PBC, Sancta Mater Ecclesia (1964), the CDF’s 1998 Commentary on the Profession of Faith, Dominus Iesus (2000) and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Hahn’s essay provides an important discussion about the way in which Scripture represents the Word of God in human language. Hahn’s article is a moving and elegant explanation of Scripture’s relationship to Jesus. He attempts to uncover Jesus’ own view of the Scriptures and demonstrate how the mystery of dual authorship, the reality of divine inspiration, is one magnificent example of divine condescension, where God beckons for us to encounter Him in the pages of Sacred Scripture.

I was also thrilled that they republished Augustin Cardinal Bea’s comments on Dei Verbum 11 which they had previously published in 2005 in the first volume of Letter & Spirit. An extra treat in this volume is the first ever English translation of Romano Guardini’s important 1928 essay, “Heilige Schrift und Glaubenwissenschaft,” which is here translated by Scott G. Hefelfinger.

Anyone interested in the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on biblical inspiration in Dei Verbum 11, Catholic views on biblical inspiration, etc., will not want to miss this volume. I am sure this volume will become a one-stop source for scholars and laity alike regarding Catholic views on biblical inspiration.

Hebrew written over Akylas' Greek translation of the OT

Up until recently, common scholarly opinion was that Jews stopped using the Greek translation of the OT fairly early.¹ Even when scholars conceded that Ethiopian Jews continue to use the Septuagint (LXX), the claim was that this is completely unique within the world of Judaism, without even remote parallels. Recently, scholars at Cambridge University working on the documents from the Cairo Genizah have discovered OT texts from the medieval period that are in Greek translation, but were transliterated into Hebrew. What that means is that these texts are in the Greek language—they are translations from earlier Hebrew copies—but then scribes wrote the Greek words using Hebrew letters.² This is not the only example of such transliterations within Judaism, e.g. the Constantinople Pentateuch from 1547 includes side-by-side columns of the Pentateuch written in Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish, all in Hebrew script.³ The Cambridge find, however, is absolutely amazing! And it shows that the Greek OT was in use within the world of Judaism long into the medieval period (10^th to 13^th centuries!!!). Different Greek translations are present in these Genizah documents, but they include the LXX.⁴

The project’s website states:

“The story of the Jewish transmission of Greek Bible versions has yet to be told. While it is recognized that the books of the Hebrew Bible were originally translated into Greek in Greco-Roman antiquity by Jews for Jews, it is generally supposed that at some point Jews gave up using the translations, along with the use of the Greek language generally, and they were preserved and used only in the Christian Church. However, materials have come to  light, some very recently, that make it plain that some Jews continued to use the Greek language throughout the Middle Ages, and that, while the Hebrew Bible came to play a central part in their religious and cultural life, they also knew the Bible in Greek.”⁵

The website of this Cambridge University project includes links to information about the background to the texts, the

The Constantinople Pentateuch

project itself, the scholars involved in the project, a list of recent scholarly publications on the project’s findings, as well as the actual texts themselves which the team of scholars has uploaded to their cite. See the website of the AHRC Greek Bible in Byzantine Judaism Project: http://gbbj.org/index.html. [Note: I’m currently having trouble with their webpage, but continue checking back to it when it is back up and working smoother.]

Claims that Jews never used the Septuagint—or that Jewish use of the Greek OT stopped long before the medieval period—should now be put to rest.

For further reading:

Boyd-Taylor, Cameron. “The Greek Bible Amongst Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages—The Evidence of Codex Ambrosianus.” In XIII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Ljubljana 2007, ed. K.H. Melvin, 29-39. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

de Lange, Nicholas. “The Greek Bible Translations of the Byzantine Jews.” In The Old Testament in Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and Robert Nelson, 39-54. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010.

de Lange, Nicholas. Greek Jewish Texts from the Cairo Genizah. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996.

de Lange, Nicholas. “Jewish Transmission of Greek Bible Versions.” In XIII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Ljubljana 2007, ed. K.H. Melvin, 109-117. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

Krivoruchko, Julia G. “The Constantinople Pentateuch within the Context of Septuagint Studies.” In XIII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Ljubljana 2007, ed. K.H. Melvin, 255-276. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

1. Epigraphic evidence indicates that even by late antiquity most Jews in Europe, modern Turkey, and Egypt or North Africa, used Greek as their main liturgical language. See, e.g., Vittore Colorni, “L’uso del greco nella liturgia del giudaismo ellenistico e la Novella 146 di Giustiniano,” Annali di storia del diritto 8 (1964): 1-69.
2. It is important to note that Jews in the Byzantine Empire spoke Greek, even though they did not typically read and write using Greek letters. In fact, most of their reading and writing was in Hebrew and Aramaic. But it now appears they sometimes read Greek in an Aramaic (or Hebrew) script. See, e.g., Nicholas de Lange, “The Greek Bible Translations of the Byzantine Jews,” in The Old Testament in Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and Robert Nelson, 39-54 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010), 40. Obviously, Akylas’ Greek translation of the OT, using the Greek alphabet, is an exception to this, and shows that Byzantine Jews did in fact sometimes read Greek written with Greek letters.
3. Spanish in Hebrew script is known as Ladino and was a common language among Sephardic Jews, sort of like Yiddish among Ashkenazic Jews. Also, technically what we think of as Hebrew script is actually an Aramaic script.
4. There is some question as to whether or not these texts are identical to the LXX, or just incredibly similar. In the case of the Greek Ecclesiastes from the Cairo Genizah, it appears to be a much later translation than the LXX, as opposed to a later copy of the LXX, but it shares quite a lot in common with the LXX version, even in the mode in which it translates the Hebrew.
5. Some readers might balk at the claim the website makes that, “it is generally recognized that the books of the Hebrew Bible were originally translate into Greek…by Jews for Jews….” See, however, the comments (and his entire essay) by one of the foremost living Jewish authorities on the LXX, namely Leonard Greenspoon: “the Septuagint originated among Jews (by Jews for Jews, we might say)….” Leonard Greenspoon, “‘Reclaiming’ the Septuagint for Jews and Judaism,” in Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, ed. Anssi Voitila and Jutta Jokiranta, 661-670 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 662.

I love the season of Lent. It is the perfect time to get one’s life in order. It is the perfect season to reflect upon our relationship with God in an even deeper way than usual. We have many disciplines to help us, especially the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. To be clear, it is important that we pray at all times and in all seasons, not just in Lent. Likewise, it is good for us to fast and habitually practice small mortifications, small penances, small acts of loving reparation, throughout our lives even outside of Lent (and outside of Fridays throughout the year). And, it’s never a bad time to give alms; “now” is always the perfect time. But in Lent, the Church lays a special emphasis on these practices to help us through our desert journey. In Lent, we travel with Jesus (and with all of the saints who have gone before us) into the wilderness, toward the joy which Easter brings.

And so, we begin our Lenten pilgrimage. My prayer is that we exit Lent changed people; that when Easter comes, we will be more closely united to Christ than ever before. If you haven’t read it yet, I would highly recommend prayerfully reading over Pope Benedict XVI’s Message for Lent this 2011. It is a moving letter, with many insights so beautifully written. The text may be accessed online at the Vatican website, here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/lent/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20101104_lent-2011_en.html.

Three other things I would like to emphasize for your consideration this Lent:

(1) Go on a retreat. I think it is a good practice to go on a retreat once a year, and Lent is a perfect season for a retreat.

(2) Meditate deeply on Scripture. If Scripture reading is not a regular practice in your life, then there is no better time to start than now. Why don’t you make a Lenten resolution to spend just 5 minutes a day prayerfully immersing yourself in Scripture. I’d recommend taking up one of the Gospels. I have always been fond of the method recommended by St. Josemaría Escrivá: “If you wish to get close to our Lord through the pages of the Gospels, I always recommend that you try to enter in on the scene, taking part as just one more person there.”¹

(3) read a book for spiritual reading, perhaps only a few minutes (5 or 10) a day. A great one, if you haven’t already read it, is Scott Hahn’s Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and their Biblical Roots, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Signs-Life-Catholic-Customs-Biblical/dp/0385519494/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299642080&sr=1-1.

1. St. Josemaría Escrivá, “The Strength of Love” (homily given 8 June 1968), in Friends of God, 227-241 (Princeton: Scepter, 2002 [1977]), 227.

Isaiah in Greek

The biblical canonization process within Judaism is quite complicated. It is frequent for Protestant scholars to take Josephus’ use and list of Scriptures as representative of the basic canon of Pharisaic Judaism–which led to rabbinic, and eventually modern Judaism–arguing that the canonization process within Judaism predates the time of Jesus. Although the Council of Jamnia (or Yavneh) [end of the first century A.D.] is NOT likely the place where the Jewish biblical canon reaches its final form, that meeting did address the canonical status of certain books—Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.¹ Scholars remain divided about the closing of the Jewish biblical canon. In my opinion, it seems likely that it is even later that the canon becomes more fixed within Judaism.

 What complicates matters further is that different groups within Second Temple Judaism apparently considered different books canonical. Although the biblical books used by the Pharisees is likely identical to Josephus’, which looks like the Old Testament of most Protestants, and, it should be noted, the Hebrew Bible (Tanak) of the majority of contemporary Judaism, this is not for certain. Sadducees, on the other hand, had a much smaller list of biblical books (only including the Penateuch, according to New Testament evidence). It is difficult to determine what canon was in

Sirach from the Cairo Genizah

use among the Jews at Qumran—where Esther has not been discovered but Tobit and Sirach from the deuterocanon have been found (in Aramaic and Hebrew no less)—but it appears they likely considered some of their own community’s texts as canonical.² The question of canon at such an early stage, however, is complicated by the fact that we are not even sure what a canon would mean at that point within Judaism. Would they have understood those texts as divinely revealed, as inspired? And what would inspiration mean for them? Would there have been a canon-within-a-canon? These questions remain unresolved.

We do know, however, that certain Jewish communities did in fact use the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Bible, and that they included the deuterocanonicals as Scripture. Although far from certain, the Book of Sirach appears to have been according canonical status among some of the early rabbis (more on this in a future post). A recent discovery of medieval manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah has shown that Jews in the medieval period in Africa, and throughout the Byzantine Empire, continued to use the LXX (more on this in a future post). To this day, Ethiopian Jews use the LXX as their Bible, including the deuterocanonicals. Some Jews in antiquity used, and some Jews today continue to include the deuterocanonicals in their Scripture. More on this in future posts.

Fragment from the Cairo Genizah

For Further Reading:

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “The Jewish Scriptural Canon in Cultural Perspective.” In The Canon Debate, ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, 53-67. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002.

Davies, Philip R. “The Jewish Scriptural Canon in Cultural Perspective.” In The Canon Debate, ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, 36-52. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002.

Mason, Steve. “Josephus and His Twenty-Two Book Canon.” In The Canon Debate, ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, 110-127. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002.

Sundberg, Albert C., Jr. “The Septuagint: The Bible of Hellenistic Judaism.” In The Canon Debate, ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, 68-90. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002.

VanderKam, James C. “Questions of Canon Viewed through the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In The Canon Debate, ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, 91-109. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002.

Yamauchi, Edwin M. “Josephus and the Scriptures.” Fides et Historia 13 (1980): 42-63.

1. If we trust the later rabbinic sources on the matter, which I think are generally trustworthy.
2. At Qumran, copies of Tobit were found in both Aramaic and Hebrew, and Hebrew fragments of Sirach were present there. Hebrew portions of Sirach were also found at Masada and in the Cairo Genizah.

English Bible

I often get asked the question, “why did the Catholic Church add books to the Bible?” We hope to do more posts on the canonization process of Scripture, but for the moment, I thought I would respond to this question with a brief post.

This question often comes to me from Protestants who assume that Christians always had a Bible that matched a modern Protestant Bible: 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. Since Catholic Bibles include 46 books in the Old Testament (but likewise share the same 27 book New Testament with Protestants), those asking me this question often assume that the Catholic Church added 7 books to the Old Testament at some point in the medieval period. These 7 books Catholics refer to as deuterocanonical (second canon), whereas Protestants often refer to them as apocryphal (hidden books, i.e., books that do not belong). These books are: 1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch. 

With such assumptions often present, this question misunderstands the actual history. Of course on the face of it, it is true that the Catholic Church “added” books to the Bible—-in the sense that the list of which books belong in the Bible (i.e., the canon) developed over time, and the Catholic Church (guided by the Holy Spirit, we believe) determined the

Hebrew Old Testament

final form of this canon.

But to set the record straight, the first list of books that matches a Protestant Bible cannot be found anywhere in history—as far as I am aware—prior to the Protestant Reformation of the 16^th century. And even then, Protestant Reformers often did not include all of the books our contemporary Protestants use. For example, Martin Luther initially doubted the canonical status of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. And while Luther had much praise for the Old Testament deuterocanonical book Judith (which he did not believe to be inspired by God, but which he thought Christians should read), he often criticized other biblical books found in Protestant Old Testaments including Esther and Jonah. The famous Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli doubted that Revelation belonged in the New Testament. John Calvin, who never wrote a commentary on Revelation, also had concerns over its canonical status. 

Prior to the Reformation, all Christian biblical canons either excluded books from the Old Testament that Protestants (and Catholics, and Orthodox) consider inspired, like Esther—-or, they excluded some of the 27 New Testament books that Protestants (and Catholics, and Orthodox) consider inspired, like 2 Peter, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation—-or, they included some or all of the 7 deuterocanonical books that Catholics (and Orthodox) include in their Bibles. There are no Bibles (nor lists of biblical books) that have the complete 27 New Testament books and all 39 Old Testament books in Protestant Bibles, but which exclude the 7 deuterocanonicals. 

Greek New Testament

The first list of 27 New Testament books comes from St. Athanasius’ 39^th Festal Letter of 367 A.D. But, while he excludes the book of Esther from his canon, he includes Wisdom of Solomon, and it appears that he probably included Baruch as well. The first time all of the books Protestants have in their Bibles were actually included in the Bible, was at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D., presided over by the Pope. And this council’s list was identical to the Catholic Bible of today. In the West, that list remained virtually unchanged until the Protestant Reformation. Thus, since Christians in the West universally used the contemporary Catholic Bible, from 382 until the Reformation—-and since, prior to that there were no Bibles identical to any Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox Bible of today—-a more historical question would be, “why did Protestants remove books from the Bible?”

For Further Reading:

Bruce, F.F. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 1988. Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298079076&sr=1-1.

McDonald, Lee Martin. The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007. Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Canon-Origin-Transmission-Authority/dp/1565639251/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298078831&sr=1-1. This is a revision of McDonald, Lee Martin. The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995. Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Formation-Christian-Biblical-Canon/dp/1565630521/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298078831&sr=1-4.

McDonald, Lee M. and James A. Sanders, ed. The Canon Debate. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2001.

Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-New-Testament-Development-Significance/dp/0198269544/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298078781&sr=1-1.

Metzger, Bruce M. An Introduction to the Apocrypha. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Apocrypha-Bruce-M-Metzger/dp/0195023404/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298078811&sr=1-1.

Morrow, Jeffrey L. “In the Crosshairs of the Canon.” This Rock 11, no. 11 (November 2000), available online at: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0011fea4.asp. N.B. This article, which I wrote as an undergraduate student, contains a serious typo with the date of Trent. Also, although it is composed as a fictional dialogue at a Bible study, all of the conversations were real conversations I had with real people prior to writing this article.