Resources:
Introduction:
Central Park, NYC
Photo Credit: JAC
A great deal has been made, especially in these latter days with the popularizing and, I might add distortion of the subject, about which books properly belong in the list of authoritative texts for Christians. I say books because the Bible is itself a composition of books in various forms. Movies like the Da Vinci Code with their conspiratorial themes call into question the extant text on many levels, but also in terms of by what means certain books came to be accepted in the canon. These sort of conjectures have the making of good entertainment, but are probably only useful in the sense it draws attention to the issue, which the more serious minded will pursue.
But the basic issue of canonicity has also been a scholarly concern and worthy of reflection for a great many people over a great deal of time. For instance, the Reformer Luther had great reservations about the book of James inclusion in the canon because of its theme on the importance of good “works” to accompany faith--a problem for his justification by faith alone view. Well, was Luther correct in his Jamian skepticism?
And Luther was not alone in his skepticism about certain books but whether he and others were correct about these allegations in large part depend on evaluating their arguments. What is the internal and external evidence we can gather regarding the particular books? Even considerations of the reaction of the early church (especially her leaders) about these issues are useful to ponder.
The scope of these reflections for serious Christians would include both the Old and New Testament, the apocryphal books and the so-called pseudopigraphal writings.
The resources on this tab are intended to give the reader background on these issues, provide scholarly references and (less scholarly) on-line links; it is to these resources we commend you.