The Sean McDowell Show - The Real Story Behind the Protestant Bible

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

When did Christians first recognize the biblical canon and how do we know we have the right books? Today, we have New Testament scholar Dr. Michael Kruger (The Question of Canon) to unpack what “canon” means, why recognition began far earlier than the 4th century, and how both intrinsic factors (covenant, apostles) and extrinsic factors (heretics like Marcion) shaped the process. We also address why Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox differ, and what to make of texts like The Shepherd of Hermas and the Gospel of Thomas.  READ: The Question of Canon: Challenging The Status Quo In The New Testament Debate by Michael J. Kruger (https://amzn.to/4nPtbE0) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the NEW Talbot Apologetics Certificate program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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They only will call something to canon when everything's neat and tidy and complete and closed. They want to know when do we have our canon? And I understand that at one level because they think, well, if it's really late, then maybe it's not reliable. If you say the canon was only four-century, you're only getting half the story because you have a core canon in the second century. If God really inspired these books, as you and I believe that you did, then they're canonical, the moment. that they are actually. Exactly. How do we know our Bibles contain the right books?

How early was the canon of scripture actually formed? What do we do about books that were left out of the Bible, such as Orthodox books like the Shepard of Hermas, and Gnostic texts like the Gospel of Thomas? And why do Protestant Orthodox and Catholics have different books? This is a show I've been wanting to do for a long time. And here, back to the show and to talk about it is perhaps the last. leading authority on the study of the origin of the New Testament, Dr. Michael Kruger. Thanks for coming back for probably, I think, the third time maybe you've joined us. Yeah, thanks, Sean. I think it is

about third. I was trying to do that in my head while you were talking, but I think this is the third time I'm back, so that's great. Well, we're going to jump into your expertise because you're an author of the book, The Question of Canon. Theologians often refer to the canon of scripture. What is it even meant by the canon? Yeah. This is a this is the term that everyone wants to talk about and it gets very confusing. There's two different words that sound like it. So there's the C-A-N-N-O-N-N-Cannon, which is like, you know, light of fused and boom, cannon ball, which my students always misspell it. And so I always tell all the papers, this is the wrong way to spell canon. The canon we're talking about is C-A-N-O-N.

And actually is based on a Greek word that Paul used that talks about rule or standard, just the normal Greek word in the ancient world. But eventually it got associated with the collection of books that we have in our Bible. So we talk about the Canada of scripture. We're talking about the collection of books that we have in our New Testament and Old Testament and which books those are. And so the reason that canon is a question for Christians is because the Bible's not like most books we read. If you think about the average book you read, it was probably written by one author who sat down at one time and wrote it. And it's all from him, and it's just a continuous book. But that's not the Christian book, right? The Bible is actually

multiple books. 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 and the New. And so, So there's this extra layer of questions for Christians, and that is why these books are not others, since it's more of an anthology than one single book, although we would argue as Christians, it is a single book from the level of inspiration. And so canon issues are just, how do we know these are the right books? And so the word is confusing. You could substitute it for collection or assembly of books or canon of books. That's the way we use it. That's a great way to put it. Now, let's start with the Old Testament. And before we get to kind of like, the historical evidence making the case we have the right books. If we just read the 39 books of the Old

Testament, should we expect new scripture to emerge at the time of Jesus and the apostles? In other words, is there anything embedded in the narrative and theology of the Old Testament that should make us anticipate these new kind of books that are also authoritative for us? Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things that secular scholars will say is that, is that yeah, there was an Old Testament canon, but Christians never thought there'd be a New Testament canon. And a New Testament canon was a late imposition on the church. It was seen as this artificial thing that was forced on Christianity and that Christianity just wanted to be an oral religion without books. And, you know, Constantine comes along and says, no, you're going to have books

and sort of forces books on the church. And so this is sort of the classic traditional retelling of the story. And that whole retelling gives the impression that Christians had no sense that there there would be new books, or there are no reason to expect new books, or no anticipation that there would be another deposit from God of scriptural books. But I think that's entirely out of sync of what we see in the Old Testament and what we see in early Christianity. So there are several things that early Christians believe, and these are facts. These aren't disputed. There's several things that early Christians believe that I think would naturally lead to a new canon of scripture. One of those things they believe is this concept of covenant. When God makes a covenant with

his people like he does in the nation of Israel, it comes with written texts. When God gave a covenant to Israel on Mount Sinai, it was initially the Ten Commandments, written text, but eventually expanded into more written texts. So when God comes along and says, I'm going to make a new covenant with you, and Jesus says, I'm inaugurating a new covenant. You would expect new covenant documents. So that's one thing Christians believed that I think would have naturally led to this expectation of new books. The other thing that Christians believe that I think led to this is they had a theological conviction about the role of the apostles. When the apostles spoke, they spoke for Jesus. They were, as Paul's own words, the ministers of the new covenant. So if you had official

agents who were ministers of the new covenant and new covenant, expect new covenant documents. And then they started writing things down. It doesn't take a lot to put the pieces together to that, right? They're not thinking, oh, what's going on here? This is so strange. No, they would have been like, well, yes, of course. God's chosen agents, the ministers of the covenant. They administer his his covenantal documents. And so when they received letters from these apostles or books from apostles, there would have been a natural built-in authority within those books, but virtue of them coming from apostles. So the whole way I describe it is the canon is not top down, sort of forced on the church, but more as intrinsic and rises up from within

the matrix of Christian beliefs that were already there. So the canon is an organic result of other things. And I think, therefore, we should expect it to have emerged early, right? If you think it's artificial, you'd expect it to emerge late. But if it grows up organically within, you might expect it would be early. And I think we do see it emerge early. That term use is really helpful intrinsic, because we're going to come back to external factors in a moment. Yes. But that we would expect this. It's built in. And your point about covenant is so important. I've been reading Deuteronomy over again in the morning. And of course, Deuteronomy 5 has the 10 commandments, as we see in Exodus 19. And at least twice, it tells us that these were written down on. And, you know,

on two stone tablets to capture the covenant and the promise. And so, of course, we need to Jeremiah 31, and it talks about a new covenant. We should expect there to be written documents to preserve it from generation to generation. So seeing that this is expected and kind of stems naturally from our Jewish roots, I think is really important. And yet in your book, you say there also are certain external factors. that helped motivate kind of the recognition or formation of the canon. I remember one of my professors in, when I was at Talbot in grad school, it was like over

two decades ago, he talked about some of the formulation of Christian doctrine was in response to heresy. Like, we better clarify exactly what we mean. So what did heresy and other external factors contribute to the formation of the canon? Yeah, that's exactly right. So when we talk about external or extrinsic and instrinsic, which are the two words I use in my book. We're not saying it's one or the other.

What I wanted to do in the book is say, secular scholars talk only about extrinsic factors, as if the canon is only determined by these things that happened to the church, which I want to say is, yeah, those may have accelerated the process. They may have contributed to the process, but that's only part of the equation. You also have these intrinsic factors where the canon is emerging out of Christianity organically. So the case I make is there's both intrinsic,

factors, and I mentioned some of those just a moment ago, and you're saying, yeah, but there's also extrinsic factors, and that's absolutely true. And one of those, of course, is heresy. One of the things that is interesting about the emergence of Christianity is one of the things that really help Christians articulate their beliefs and articulate what they what they held to was the attacks on the church. And there were attacks from the outside, secular philosophers saying Christianity doesn't make any sense. Celsius, for example, second century philosopher saying your gospels are rubbish, they're full of contradictions, and they're meaningless. But then you have internal heresies. Of course,

Gnosticism being the most famous one, and that term is so all encompassing. There's really a bunch of little tributaries off of that. But yeah, so what happens is when Christians come face to face with these challenges, you have to do better in the way you express yourself. You have to be clearer about what you believe, and you have to be more firm about the things you receive is authoritative. So yeah, there's no doubt that these factors would have accelerated or contributed to the formation of the canon. Probably the most famous one people mention is Marcion, right? One of the earliest Christian heretics, around 140 AD. He's in Rome and he says, hey, I got a canon for you guys. And it's basically, let's get rid of the Old Testament. And let's just look at 10 of Paul's letters and the gospel of Luke

and I'll even edit those and take out all the Jewish parts. And here's your canon. Right. Some secular scholars will say that Marcionian put forward the very first canon, and then the church responded to that and put forward their canon. I don't agree. I think it's the opposite. I think the church already had a canon, and Marcyon was coming to truncate it, and the church rebuked him and rejected him. Regardless of how you slice it up, it is true that you have both extrinsic and intrinsic factors, and it reminds us that God uses persecution.

God uses suffering to make his church stronger and more effective. And I think that's a lesson we can remember today, too. I think we often think that the church does better when the church is in power or the church does better when the church is immune from cultural challenges. I don't think that history teaches us that. I think history teaches us the church actually thrives ironically when it's not in power and when it's not the majority message. And I think it humbles us and makes us trust in God more more consistently.

Amen to that. I agree 100%. But it's interesting that if Marcians quote, Canon is in 140 AD and to place this for people, If the gospel of John is written in the 90s, this is half a century later. This is not a lot of time. No. When there still would be some of the followers of the apostles who knew them around into the second century, so there's still a chain of command with this. And if he says, no, you all are wrong. Here's the right canon. That kind of implies that there's already a canon in place that he's twisting and corrupting and changing.

So I agree with it. It actually makes the opposite point that I think people. intend it to make, which raises what you might call the million dollar question, when did the first canon of scripture emerge? And I guess we could understand this. In one sense, we'd say, well, it emerged as soon as the books were done because they were inspired by God and they're a part of the canon. So I'm not asking what we might call the ontological question. I'm saying more, when did this recognition of the canon first emerge? And what evidence do we have for that? Yeah, so this is the most common question I get. People are hung up on date.

They want to know when do we have our canon. And I understand that at one level because they think, well, if it's really late, then maybe it's not reliable. If it's really late, maybe someone else did it. It really didn't grow up organically out of the early Christian movement. So I'll give you what most people will tell you about the date of the canon. And I'm going to give you what I think is the bigger picture. So if you ask the average scholar, if you read the average textbook at a major university on Canada, they're going to say there wasn't no canon until the fourth century or maybe fifth century.

And you might think, well, why would they say that? Well, they say that for lots of reasons. One of the reasons they say it is it's that time we see a complete full list of just those 27 books sort of for the first time. And they usually date it to Athanasius' Festal letter in 367. Now, I don't think that's the first full list we have. And I've made an argument that I think we've got a full list more than a century earlier under origin. That's beside the point. The point is they only will call something to canon when everything's neat and tidy and complete and closed.

And at one level, they're right. Okay. So at one level, did the dust settle on all the peripheral books and everything around the fourth century? Yes. So if you want to use that definition of canon, okay, then it's fourth century. But I don't think that's the whole story. And I make a big point of this in my book, the question of canon, that you have to realize that there was a core collection of books that long predated the fourth century. And what do I mean by core?

By the middle of the second century to the late seventh century. Second century, you can see that Christians had rallied around about 22 out of 27 books, which is remarkable amount of unity. And what are these 22 out of 27? You know, four gospels, Acts, 13 letters of Paul, and then books like 1st Peter, 1 John, Hebrews, etc. This tends to be the core. And then some of the peripheral books, 2nd Peter, 2nd, 3rd, John, Jude, James, tend to be books that had more conversations about them over time.

But if you say the canon was only four-century, you're only getting half the story because you have a core canon in the second century, right? Much earlier with a great degree of unity. And then as you mentioned, if we want to look at the definition even more fundamentally, and from God's perspective, we have a canon in the first century, right? Because he gave the 27 books during that century. So when people ask me, when did the Christians have a canon? I usually say, well, don't think of it as dates. Think of it as stages. That's the best way to think in a canon.

Stage one, God gives the books, all 27. Stage two, Christians recognize and rallied around a court very early. That's second century. Stage three, the dust settles, mop-up exercise is done, and you have a complete set by the fourth century. That's a great way to put at it, because if God really inspired these books, as you and I believe that he did, then they're canonical the moment that they are actually. Exactly. Right? Which is different than some of the ongoing debates, which were not so much historical, but a lot of them like Revelation, were driven theologically by people, which is a piece that some people miss and don't fully understand. That's a key component. Now, I'm curious what you make of this apologetic response

that I use sometimes. And feel free to say, Sean, I would go a different direction and I wouldn't make that argument. Okay, we'll see what you're going to say here. So people will challenge the canon say it's not formed until the fourth century. And I'll say, look, imagine that's the case. We don't have second Peter. We don't have second. third John, there's no early debate substantive whatsoever about the four gospels and the letters of Paul. So we can talk about the debate of those secondary books, which is not unimportant, but as far as knowing who Christ is, the nature of the gospel, it's all laid out there and there's no debate about that. Your thoughts. Yeah, oh yeah, I use that exact argument. I think it's a great

argument. So the argument basically is saying as important as these other books, are 2nd Peter, 2nd, 3rd, John, and Jude, and so forth, the theological trajectory of Christianity had already been set. There wasn't like whether those books were in or out decided with the divinity of Jesus. It wasn't as if whether you're going to accept Jude or James. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead, The Daily Bible app reads verses, reading plans and chapters allowed, handy for the headphones moment of your day.

Choose from versions like ESV, NIV, NIV, KJV, and more, and bookmark favorites to revisit later. Share inspiring messages with loved ones right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. ...incided any core Christian doctrine. The theological trajectory of the faith was already tracking solidly for centuries before the those final books were sort of solidified. And I think that's a valid argument.

I would back it up even more. I would say a lot of the major theological freight of Christian theology was already in place because the Old Testament was there. In other words, there's certain things that were never going to be accepted by early Christians because the Old Testament theology was already in place that told them the Gnostic vision of creation or the lack of it, the Gnostic vision of the God of the Old Testament being a false God was never going to be a contender for the canon because it was so contrary to the books that Christians already had, namely the Old Testament. So you have to realize by the time you get

to the 4th century, Christians not only have the Old Testament, which they've had for generations, but they have a core collection of a New Testament books, 22 out of 27. So the theology is set, the trajectory is set regardless of the results of these peripheral books. So I think that's a great answer. And it tells you that, yeah, we care about those discussions, but those weren't definitive in terms of defining the faith. And we could also add the early creeds that predate the books themselves, like 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 5 or 3 through 7, Romans 1, 3 through 4. You have creeds in 1st Peter. There's creeds in the end of the gospel, Luke that, you know, Jesus has appeared, he has risen

and appeared to Simon. So in some sense, we can get the heart of the gospel, apart from even having inspired books themselves as important as that is. So I guess I want to separate for people the apologetic question of how we know who. who Jesus claimed to be the core of the Christian faith, from the question of canon, which is really important for faithful Christian living and understanding how we know who God is and how he's revealed himself, that is downstream from the prior question of, is Jesus God, did he rise from the grave? Is Christianity true? Yeah. And so this gets to the debate that has been raised by a number

of scholars about whether there was a way to define heresy and orthodoxy in these earliest stages, right? And that's really what you're getting at. So some scholars will say, you know, heresy and orthodoxy wasn't even a defined category until, say, fourth century. And so Christians are flying blind. You know, what's true about Jesus? What's not true about Jesus? We don't know until the fourth century. What do we say about salvation and how you're saved? We don't know till the fourth century, says the argument. But that implies there's no other, there's no other way to know what these theological truths are. And I said, already. Well, we have the Old Testament books. We have the core New Testament books, and we have

early creedal statements, which later morphed to know what we call the rule of faith. The rule of faith was something that existed even past the first century, where Christians would summarize the entire Christian system in a few statements. It could be a form of an early creed, but it was sort of a theological summation of what Christians believed. And those are consistent across the empire. We can see the rule of faith being articulated and repeated and affirmed across a wide range of locations. This is really helpful. I just got to point out for my audience, when we hear objections, like you've got the wrong books in the Bible, or the canon was formed in the fourth century, we need to place that in comparison of the question of like, did Jesus rise from the grave?

Did Jesus claim to be God? Is salvation by faith? These are important apologetic questions, but not central to the heart of the faith being true itself. Sometimes we miss that. Now, let's keep going, because this question really is important and a lot is at stake. Let me ask you what might be considered more of an in-house debate in the sense of between Catholics, Orthodox, and between Protestants. The question often comes up, did the early church choose the books in the canon? Or did they recognize the books that were canonical? And if they recognize them, what criteria did they actually use to recognize canonical books?

Yeah, this is a really important question, and the way people frame the question around this vocabulary really matters. And people often have this idea that the early Christians chose books or decided books or created the canon is the kind of language that's used. And I get that language. I understand what they're trying to say about that. Obviously, the church wasn't passive. The church did something. But what's the something that it did? I would suggest that theological evidence would point to the fact that the church did not see itself as having the authority to decide books.

If you were to walk up to someone in the second century, stuck a microphone in their face and said, hey, why did you guys pick Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? I think the average Christian would have been like, I don't really understand your question. What do you mean? Why did we pick Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? And you say, well, you have Matthew Mark, Luke, and John, so who picked them? It gives this impression that the church sort of stood back and says, wow, we need to pick books. Let's go find books and pick them. And let's look at criteria and figure out which ones they are.

And then we'll pick books and we will have made an official decision and you could read the vote and everything. But that's not how it unfolded historically. There was no evidence of any sort of counsel in the second century that would have picked the Gospels. There's no vote. There's no gathering. So how did Christians know these were the books? And I think this is where you realize the process of canon is much more organic than people think. God's word, if it's true, is a powerful thing.

And I think it, in a sense, imposed itself on the church. And I think the church recognized that these are the books handed down from the apostles. And as they looked at these books handed down from the apostles, they recognize the voice of the Lord in these books. And so there's a sense in which they didn't choose the books, create the books, form the canon. They recognized what was already true of them. That was already, they were already recognized as apostolic books, burying Christ's authority.

And that really makes a big difference. Because if you say that that human beings chose the canon and did it top down, that implies that these books are a human construct, that religion itself is a human construct. And I think most people try to think of religion this way. They want to believe that religion is merely the product of human beings' decisions. And so they often use canon as an example of this and say, oh, Augustine, or sorry, Constantine picked the books of the canon. And they think that's the way religion works. It's a top-down human forced on the church sort of thing. I'm suggesting no, they naturally recognize these books by the help of the Holy Spirit over time.

And I think that makes Canada a very different thing. Would you compare to this, and maybe it's not a perfect analogy, but say somebody's doing history. Well, why did you come to this theory as opposed to another theory, this explanation opposed to another one? Somebody wouldn't say, well, I just decided it. I have the authority. You'd say, well, this is where the evidence points. This is where the data points. I'm recognizing what is true, not decisive.

exciting it. I'm just announcing that which seems to be the case about reality. Is that a fair comparison? No, I think it is. I mean, no Christian would say that they made these book scripture. No Christian in the early church would have thought that they had the authority to say, yeah, we're standing over this and we're going to declare what's from God and what isn't. I think they always viewed themselves any time they made a declaration to simply affirming what they had always been the case before they ever got on the scene. And I think that's the role of humans when we interact with God. We respond to God. We respond to what God has done and we affirm what God has done. We don't claim to have done those things. We claim that we are responding to what has already

taken place. So it may sound like theological hair splitting for people to think, well, is choose versus recognize what's the difference? It's all the same. Well, I understand what they mean by that. There's still humans involved. We're not denying that. But I do think the posture in which humans approach these books really makes the difference. And I think we want to affirm these aren't just man-made things. God has done this and humans come along and look at these books and say, we see that God has done this. That's where the evidence points. And then we affirm that. And by affirming that, you're not saying you created these books of scripture, but they already were by the time you encountered them. Exactly. Sometimes people ask me as an apologist. They're like,

why does God need defending? And I say, he doesn't need any defending. He exists and his word is true, whether I recognize it or not. But other people aren't convinced by this. This is one way that God might use this through his spirit to draw someone to it. And so if they're doing a somewhat similar thing with the scripture, what criteria were they utilizing or looking to to know that this book was inspired and authoritative as opposed to a different book was inspired and authoritative? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What were Christians, what convinced Christians that these books are God is another way to ask the question. And the term criteria is tricky.

In my book, Hannah Revisited, I actually don't like using that term, not because it's evil or something, but because I think the term criteria overinflates the church's role. It gives this impression that the church is standing over this with some sort of presiding authority saying, well, we're going to come up with some criteria. And boy, those books better meet it. And if they don't meet it, they don't satisfy us. And so it's really us that decides this. Well, the criteria language can give that impression. And I think that's really not what happened. I think what Christians were doing is they were persuaded these books were from God for reasons, of course.

They had reasons. But it wasn't as if they were standing over these books. Rather, there was already an ingrained theological sense among Christians that if you were going to have a book that came from God, it had to come from someone who has a position that could speak for God. In other words, not just anybody could write a divine book, not just anybody can speak for God. Not as anybody could come along and write a really good book and get it in the Bible. Even the first century Christians would have understood that based on the Old Testament, the books that we would count as authoritative have to come from people who are authorized to speak for God.

And the Old Testament, those people were called prophets. But what were they called in the New Testament? They were called apostles. So I think the sort of central backbone of the canon is this idea that these books come from Jesus' authorized spokespeople, his spokesman, his, his apostles. They could speak for him. So why would the early Christians think that something like 1st John should be in the canon or the gospel of Matthew should be in the canon?

Not because they sat around and had a committee that voted on criteria, because it's a built-in theological part of the matrix of their faith, starting with Judaism and on, that you look to God's authorized spokesman to speak for him. And there's the only ones that can speak for him. And it was well known that it was the 12. It was the 12 that those were the initial spokesman for Jesus. And of course, we know Paul also saw the risen Lord and could speak for Jesus.

And I think that apostolic office was key to the whole enterprise. That's a really helpful distinction. So that raises another question. What about other Orthodox books, meaning they line up with broad, historic Christian teaching? Is it almost made into the canon but didn't? This might be books like the shepherd of Hermes or Hermis or might be pronounced Hermes. the gospel of the Hebrews. Like, why were those not included compared to, like, first and second Peter?

Yeah, so it's interesting. There were discussions of some of these peripheral books. And there's a few books floating around from time to time that some patristic authors really seem to like. And you have a couple very small snippets here and there where they seem to indicate that some church fathers may have viewed them as scriptural from time to time. But this is very minimal. The Shepherd of Hermis is the classic example. The Shepherd of Hermis is a second century production. probably comes out of the Roman context in the middle of the second century,

is really an apocalyptic style book where this person has visions from an angel. And it was quite orthodox and quite well loved and quite well liked. But never really was a serious contender for the canon. But at least was popular enough for one of our earliest canonical lists to mention it. This earliest canonical list we have is called the Muratorian Fragment or the Murritorian Canon is sometimes referred to. And the author of the Muratoring Canon, we don't know who this person was, lists all the received books, but then makes a few comments about other books. And one of those books is the Shepherd of Hermes. And what's really telling is that it's obvious by the context that Shepherd of Hermes is popular and well loved and well liked.

But the author of the Murritorian fragment says it's not to be seen as part of the canon. And the reasoning is really interesting. The reason given is it was written recently in our own time. That's why the Shepherd of Hermis could not be seen as scriptural. So what's lurking behind that, not written or written recently in our own time? Well, the obvious context is, is that the shepherd of Hermes doesn't come from the time of the apostles. It doesn't come from the first century when the apostles could have been, could have been the author. So it may be an Orthodox book. It may be a helpful book, maybe a useful book, but it could never be a real contender for the canon because it doesn't go back to the authorized spokesman. And by definition, if it's written in the second century, it can never be

written by one of the authorized spokespeople for Jesus. So that particular example, just solidifies what we said a minute ago, which is apostolicity was the backbone of the canonical enterprise. And the same thing would be said of other books. We can talk about the gospel of the Hebrews. That's interesting. A number of church fathers talk about some non-canonical gospels from time to time and even use them from time to time. Clement of Alexandria was a great example of this. He used non-canonical gospels occasionally as useful tools, but he never considered them scripture. He never considered them as canonical. When it came to which gospels in our Bibles, it's always Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So they have a role. It's just not a

scriptural role. That distinction is really helpful that there were texts like the Shepherd of Hermes that would maybe appear at times in certain circles. But it's one thing to appear in a small segment and maybe on occasion treated like scripture as opposed to showing up early and consistently and widespread like the Gospels. You're really comparing apples and oranges. Now, one thing you said- Actually, let me pause on that for a moment, because this is a really key point.

People tend to think that if there's ever a book that's disputed, they always assume in their mind, I found this in many conversations over the years. They always assume in their mind that it's like a 50-50 dispute. You know, if you say there's dispute of books, they have this impression that it's like, well, half the church thought it should be in and half the church thought it should be out. What I want to remind people of is that even the books we say were on the edges,

they were never actually real contenders. I mean, the Shepherd of Hermes, like you said, I had a few spattering of comments, but it was never really a serious contender. And then on the flip side, books like Second Peter and Jude and James that had a little bit of conversation about them, don't think that's 50-50 either. It took time for some of the dust to settle on those books,

but we still see a very strong movement. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead?

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Favor those books alongside the dissenters from a very early time. So again, I would say to your listeners, if there's controversy of a book, don't always assume it's 50-50. Actually, some of the controversy is very limited in certain spheres and in certain locations. So one assumption people has is if there's a dispute, then it's more widespread than it actually was. Another misunderstanding. I remember the first time I heard this that kind of threw me for a loop that these early codices, which you talk about are rather than scrolls, more early book-type formats to contain texts, which Christians didn't invent but really popularized and utilized, so to speak.

There's certain codices where you'd have canonical books like the Gospels, but then you'd have other non-canonical books appear in the same codacy. And remember the first time heard that, I thought, wait a minute, are they treating them the same because they're in the same codacy? This is also another misunderstanding, isn't it? Yeah, I hear this brought up a lot. And I understand the rationale. I mean, the Codex was a book format in the ancient world that Christians adopted very early. And I've written about this in a number of places that seems to have been adopted because of its canonical significance.

The Codex can hold books together, a lot of books together, that a scroll can never hold. hold and had a sort of closed off sense to them, that these are the books that we receive and not others. So I understand that implication of the codex so that if you have a codex and you have other books in it, you think, oh, no, maybe the canon isn't as certain as we think it is often the case. So Codex Sinaiticus, I believe it's Codex Alexandrinus. I can't remember off the top of my head has, you know, Shepherd of Hermes and Epistle of Barnumis and one of first and second Clement and the other as part of the physical codex that you read. And so people think, oh, well, I guess the canon was totally in flux.

I think that's a misreading of the evidence significantly. Here's why. One of the things we know about the order of these books in the canon is significant. The fact is, yes, these these codices included books like the first as a cyclone, for example, at the tail end. But the fact that they're at the tail end is significant. You know, if you would have taken those letters and put them inside the typical. 27 book corpus and slotted them in alongside the letters of Paul, I think we could have a conversation about that and think, okay, well, what did the scribe intend by putting them there?

By putting it at the end, I think it's not at all indicative of the canonical status because when we look in the early church and we look at canonical lists in the early church, which is another form of ordering books, often at the end, they put useful books or other books that were part of the conversation that aren't in the Canada but still are seen as valuable or profitable. And I think that's what's happening in these codices. These are these are not seen as equal to the Gospels or Paul, but yet still valuable and useful books. One thing I do point out is that, you know,

take the Gospels, for example, if in fact the canon was as in disarray as people often claim, why don't we ever find a codex that has a mix of canonical Gospels and Apocryphal Gospels? Never happens. Every time we see a codex with multiple Gospels, it's always Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. and never is it Matthew Mark and Thomas and Peter or Matthew Mark and Philip and Mary. It's always Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So there is a sense in which Christians had a pretty tight sense of which books belong,

but that didn't keep them from time to time from putting these other books at the back end of the codex as useful for reading. So the idea that that tack-on could override all the other evidence we have, I just think, isn't a fair use of what we're seeing historically. In perfect analogy, but we might compare it to like the Dead Sea Scrolls. scrolls that we find these canonical books from the Old Testament, but also preserved other non-canonical texts like commentaries. Why? Because they were valuable to that community. And the way they preserve them doesn't tell us that they're necessarily on equal status as one another, similar to what we see in these codexes or codices, that they have other functions

for this community may be teaching functions, but doesn't imply they're equally authoritative or canonical. Yeah, I mean, I always tell my students, you know, what if, what if your personal library at home got buried in the sand for a thousand years and they found your personal library? What would they conclude your books of Scripture were, you know? Could they say, well, this person, we can tell in this person's library, he really loves C.S. Lewis, so he has a bunch of books by C.S. Lewis. So he must have thought C.S. Lewis was scripture. I mean, that's crazy. You don't just look at a library and conclude the

everything in it is equally valuable. And you have to look at other factors to determine what a, what a person views of scripture versus something else. And that's the Dead Sea Scrolls is exactly like that. Of course, we find a library. And a library is going to, you know, going to contain biblical books. And it's also going to attain extra biblical books. But we don't just, by virtue of finding them in the same locale,

put them all in the same level of authority. Okay, hang on. I'm confused. You're telling me C.S. Lewis is not inspired. I know. It's going to be a tough pill to swallow, man. It also reminds you, by the way, that there's also, there's the canon that you affirm theologically, and then there's your functional canon.

You know, your functional canon is just the books you use. And by the way, this is true inside the Bible. There's the functional canon. What is everyone going to read? The gospel, John, Romans, Galatians, you know, and a few others is there a functional canon. But then also functionally, you know, no slide on Lewis. Sometimes people read extra biblical books as common. is the Bible, if not more commonly than the Bible. And you might chuckle and wonder which one of these

is actually functioning in a scripture in your life. Well, Lewis said it. That settles it. I believe it is often the mantra. So here's another million dollar question for you that comes up, definitely in apologetic circles, but beyond, is that books like Revelation, Hebrews and James are canonical. But it seems like the disputes about them continued for centuries and centuries long afterwards. So do we have less confidence in those books than we do some of the other books? And what is the evidence they really should be included in the canon? Yeah, so each of those has its own story. And this is the thing I always tell people is that, you know, it's easy to take a group of books that have some level of dispute about them and put them in a pile and say, oh, yeah, look at all these disputed books.

But each has their own story. A good example, this is the book of Hebrews. the ongoing discussion you're describing about the book of Hebrews actually was not about its canonical status. It was actually about its authorship. There wasn't actually a movement in the later church that says, we're going to kick this out of the canon. Actually, there was quite a bit of unity around Hebrews quite early in terms of its canonical status. What there was is an ongoing dispute about who the actual author was. Now, people will hear that and go, well, how could you have certainty of canonical status but uncertainty about author?

because of the apostolic links again. Why was Hebrews regarded as canonical, even though the author was unclear? Because we knew enough about the author to know that this was an apostolic person. If someone goes back and reads Hebrew chapter 2, it's very clear that the author positions himself as an apostolic man, so to speak. He's in the apostolic orbit and gets his information from the apostolic community. And so the author of Hebrews actually positions himself a lot like Luke, interestingly. In fact, there's a number of folks that think Luke is actually behind Hebrews. That was true in the ancient world, originally floated by Clement of Alexandria,

suggested that maybe Luke was the translator of Paul here, and that, yeah, it's sort of Paul, but it's really Luke. And then in the recent years, David Allen, a more modern scholar, has made a full case for Luke and authorship of Hebrews. I'm not necessarily convinced of that. But the point I'm making is that whoever the author is, he's positioning himself like Luke. And no doubt that was the reason the book was received as authoritative very early. So Hebrews really isn't a story of a book where dispute continues, because it's not really

about canonical status. It's about authorship. And by the way, it's still talked about the day in terms of authorship. Have you interviewed 10 scholars? You'd have 10 different views on the authorship of Luke. Sorry, the authorship of Hebrews. And so that is, I think, a separate case. The book of Revelation has also got a unique journey because, yes, there was some ongoing to speak about the book of Revelation that trickled on for some years. But actually, Revelation has some of the best early attestation of any canonical book. So what's interesting about Revelation is it bucks all the trends. So outside of Revelation, there's two kind of ways books made it into the canon.

Some made it in very, very early and stayed there, four gospels. Some took a little bit longer to get in there and then stayed there, you know, second, third John, Jude, and James. But then Revelation is a whole different thing. Revelation got there really fast and has tremendous early support. And then it had a later hiccup where it kind of, of dipped in its, its certainty and then recovered finally. So it started off fast, kind of went down, that went back up. Why? Why? Because there was a dispute in the third century, mainly by a person by the

name of Dionysius, who raises questions about whether, in fact, the author of Revelation was John. And maybe it was another John, a different John than John the Apostle. And that kind of rattled everybody. And then there was this rumor that broader spreading that maybe the author was really Sorinthus, and it's a heretical book. Okay, so that took a while to hammer that all out. But actually, Revelation has a very early, fast, rapid reception, all because it was associated with John the Apostle from a very early time. And even those debates continue today. I did my dissertation on the deaths of the apostles, and there's extensive debate, whether it's John the Elder or John the apostle, still stuff being published today. So I just want to pause and make sure that, you know, my

viewers and listeners recognize that we hear this all the time that these disputes continue to centuries. And yet with Hebrews, it wasn't about whether it was canonical or not. It was about who the author was. When it comes to Revelation, it was early, strong evidence it's canonical, but then later authorship and other theological issues raise a hiccup for it. That's a very different way of approaching this than we often hear. Now, when we talk about books being canonized, one interesting question is, is there any internal evidence within the New Testament that the writers considered other books within the New Testament canonical? And some of the passages that are referred to, I'd love to hear you comment on like 2nd Peter 3, 15, and 16 where Peter

talks about twisting the scriptures and Paul's letters, which is so interesting. And of course, 1 Timothy 518, where Paul quotes, I believe it's Luke 107, maybe. Maybe we'd quote something from the gospel. What's happening in those passages and how did they contribute to this conversation? Yeah, that's great. Hold on a second. We'll edit this out. I just need to grab a tissue here.

No problem. Let me make a note when this is 41 minutes. 41. Of course, if I leave this in, some people go, oh, wow, it's so authentic behind the scenes. Maybe I'll just leave it in for fun. There you go. Yeah, so I've actually written a statement. extensively on the concept we talked about earlier, which is this idea of evidence within early

Christianity that would have given us a reason to think the canon grew up organically, innately, intrinsically. And one of the pieces of evidence of this is, in fact, the interconnections between New Testament books where one book views another book as scripture within the New Testament itself. And the examples of that are obvious. You've mentioned a couple of them, 2 Peter 3, where Paul's letters are right alongside the Old Testament as scripture and called Grafay. I think that's tremendous evidence that by the mid-60s, if you date 2nd Peter to the mid-60s, which I do, that you've got a sense that apostolic books are scriptural books. Peter seems to affirm that about Paul. What's interesting in that context is that it's multiple Paul's books. There's clearly a Pauline

letter collection. It's not just one letter of Paul. We don't know how many are in this collection in Peter's mind, but it's clearly a Pauling letter collection. The other thing that's interesting about the way Peter sets that up in Second Peter is he mentions it sort of off the cuff. He doesn't say, have you heard of this guy, Paul? He's really great. Or, you know, we really ought to consider Paul's letters to be Scripture. I know you probably don't agree, but let me make my case for it.

He doesn't present it like the audience would be shocked by it. He presents it to his audience as if they know Paul. They have Paul's letters. And they already agree at Scripture. It's an incidental sidebar comment that he makes, which I think shows you that it's already a widespread thing by then that Paul's letters are Scripture. Now, of course, secular scholars will disagree with this and say, well, you know, we don't think Peter's really written by Peter. Second Peter's really written by Peter and it's second century.

But assuming the Orthodox date for it, which I've defended in other places, I think you have a tremendous evidence for canon very early here. First Timothy 518 is the same way. What's interesting about First Timothy 518 is that Paul quotes an Old Testament book of scripture, the book of Deuteronomy, Dump muzzle of Ox while he treads out the grain, and then quote some other writing of scripture right next to it. He doesn't tell us what the writing is, but the words are,

a worker deserves his wages or a worker is worthy of his wages. So he has an Old Testament quote of scripture and some mysterious new other book that he also calls Grafei scripture. And the only place that matches on the planet, word for word in Greek, is Luke 107, where Jesus is uttering those words. And so it's possible

Luke is either citing, or sorry, that Paul is either citing from Luke, which I think is a very probable thing there, or citing from some other written texts that has the same words in it, also as Scripture. But regardless of whether there's Luke or some other text, the fact is, Paul has no trouble affirming a new book as Scripture alongside the Old Testament in the 60s of the first century, which would have been the time period of First Timothy. So I think that's tremendous evidence of this interpolinization of New Testament books and shows you that there was a what scholars call a canonical consciousness very early, right?

They didn't. It's not as if only in the fourth century someone scratched their head and goes, you know, everyone else seems to have books. We ought to have books too. All right, great. So in the fourth century, let's all decide the canon. But no, it seems like that was happening already in the first century. And it makes sense that these would show up in later books, not earlier books, because you

wouldn't have other New Testament books to cite when they're written early. And it makes sense. me they show more up in letters like what Peter. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead?

The Daily Bible app reads verses, reading plans, and chapters allowed, handy for the headphones moment of your day. Choose from versions like ESV, NIV, NIV, KJV, and more, and bookmark favorites to revisit later. Share inspiring messages with loved ones right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. And Paul Wright, who by the way are clearly the most influential early to apostles, not just the 12, but broader, like you said, in 1st Corinthians 9, Paul had an appearance of Jesus. It's these two, not more obscure apostles that are citing these other works as canonical.

So in many ways, it's the kind of thing we would expect if you had this built-in kind of expectation and belief you should be writing scripture and creating and teaching them, treating them on par with the Old Testament scripture as well. So it seems to really fit. Let me ask, I got a few more questions for you. No, it does. Yeah. Did you want to add anything to that? No, I was just saying it just, no, I was going to say that I think that's exactly

confirmatory of the intrinsic model. If the intrinsic model is correct, which is that Christians would have intuitively expected writings very early that were a new covenant text, then it fits perfectly with that that Paul's letters are regarded in scripture and that there's already this sense that maybe even Luke is regarded as scripture from a very early point. So I think it dovetails quite well with what we're advocating here, which is that canon is not a late top-down imposition from human authorities, but rather it grows up naturally within the Christian religion. So as far as I'm aware, Jesus never told his disciples to write anything down. So how do we know, like how can we have confidence that they felt this sense that they are supposed to record scripture?

And did they believe they were writing texts on par with scripture, or does that emerge kind of later with the early church fathers? Yeah, this is such an important issue. I feel like this issue still has not gotten the attention that deserves. So the issue you're really raising is was there, was there authorial awareness among the New Testament writers that they are writing scripture, that they know what they were doing? Or are they just writing occasional books? Like Paul wrote a few letters and Luke wrote a historical account.

And then later the church goes, wow, these are great books. Have you read Paul? He's awesome. In fact, he's so awesome. I think we should make him scripture. All in favor. All in favor. I, let's make Paul's scripture. And then Paul's rolling around in his grave going, what are you guys doing?

I didn't intend the right scripture. That's the narrative. That's what people think goes on. And Christians believe this. It's not just secular scholars to say that. The average person in the pew does not think when the New Testament books are written that the authors had any intent for what happened. And that these books are in some sense written with one purpose, but then used later for a completely different purpose, maybe even out of sync with what the original author intended. And by the way, if that's the model, then I agree with the skeptics.

I'm like, yeah, that doesn't sound like I would trust those books. If those books were just kind of hijacked by the later church and infused with authority, well, then they're no more authoritative than the later church. Why would I put any trust in those? But I don't think that's what happened. I think what we have in these books is a real sense of authorial intent. Now, it is true that Jesus never says to his apostles, go write things down. But that, I think, is missing the point entirely.

Because what Jesus did very clearly say to his apostles is that you are my authorized spokespeople, you go around the world and you tell my story and you get the word out and you pass it around. and when you speak, I speak. When you speak, you speak with my authority. Now, the fact that as they spoke orally and verbally to people, which would have been the initial way they, of course, would have gotten the word out, wouldn't mean that when they wrote things down, what they wrote had less authority. In fact, we have a number of places where Paul says,

he does this in First Thessalonians and other places where he says, you know, you receive my words that I'm writing, the words in this text as authoritative, as the very words of God. And so there's a sense in which Paul recognized it. It's not like when I talk to you orally, I have authority. but when I write things down, suddenly the authority evaporates. That's crazy because in a Jewish context, it's almost the opposite. It's actually when you write it down, it's even more authoritative because they're used to having sort of a scriptural context for their lives.

So why did it take the Apostle some time to write things down? I think as it became clear that they're dying out, as it became clear that they're aging out, as it became clear that the empire was growing in a way they could not personally visit every place. I think it was natural that you put this in paper to preserve it for the next generation. But that doesn't change the idea of it. The message that's on paper is the exact same message that they would have given orally. And it's the same message that Jesus asked them to give. And in your book, you walk through some examples of like Galatians, Paul is going so out of his way to establish his authority as an apostle who can uniquely speak these truths. it obviously applies again like in first

Corinthians chapter 9 where Paul says have I not seen the risen Jesus am I not an apostle? My words carry authority with them like we're not you and I but this question is kind of from the outside saying how do you know but if we place ourselves in that position given their Jewish roots it's so obvious that if you're a spokesman for Jesus and you've had an appearance of him and been commissioned by Jesus what you write down would have that same authority.

So there's less built a need to convince the audience in a way we feel the need to be convinced, given the million in which they're being raised. That's right. I mean, it's almost like someone wants to say, unless Paul wages his hand and goes, guys, I'm writing scripture. I'm writing scripture as I write these words that I won't understand that his books have authority. But he didn't have to speak that way. It was clear that he's writing as an inspired spokesman for Jesus.

He's writing as an apostle, as you indicated, Galatians and other places Paul goes out of his way to say, hey, what I'm writing to you, this is really important because it comes from Jesus himself. And then there are passages where Paul basically does effectively equate his written words with the authority of Jesus. I mentioned one of those passages in 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul basically says, the words I'm writing to you are the commandments of the Lord. And so I'm like, yeah, he didn't call it Grafay, but I'm like, you're missing the point. that's a nomenclature game. The question is how would those words have been received? And what's interesting is that the earliest Christians, when they're talking about Paul's letters, Paul's letters were scary. The Corinthians were like, your letters are scary, but you're not that scary in person. So Paul's,

Paul's personal presence actually was less intimidating than those letters. And I think there's a sense in which his letters are bearing that apostolic way even more plainly, ironically, than Paul in person. And so I think the fact of the matter is those books that have been functioning as scripture from the very start and therefore naturally seen as on par with the Old Testament very quickly. Two last questions for you. One is I can imagine some people going, okay, this makes sense, but Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox don't have all the same 66 books. So why a disagreement? And how do you know Protestants got it right? Yeah. Well, this is a longstanding question and has so many layers to it. Of course. So many backstories to it. I mean, the major part of this debate is really between Protestants and Catholics. The Eastern Orthodox Church does have a certain approbation. They give books, but they really don't give these intertestamental books the same authority that Rome does. And so it's really a Rome versus Protestant issue. And so how do you know who's right here? Well, that's a long and complicated question. but I'll give you one tidbit that I think is why Protestants go the route we've gone.

And that is whatever the Old Testament can and we believe is from God, who has the right to tell us which books those are? Well, certainly a person whose opinion matters a lot on this is Jesus's. Okay. Jesus makes it clear that in his day, he could refer to the Word of God, he could refer to Scripture, he could quote the Old Testament, he did it a tons of times, and he considered it inspired, he considered it the fully inerrant Word of God.

He considered it historically true. Jesus also holds his audience accountable for the Word of God. He says, look, you're not following it, and you should be following it. The only way Jesus could ever behave the way he behaved is if there was a received, understood collection of Old Testament books by the time of the first century. In other words, Jesus could only hold his audience accountable if, in fact, there was an agreement about what the canon is. And I think there's tremendous evidence that the canon was in place in the first century

and that there was a widespread agreement on it. And one of the things you'll notice is that as Jesus, Jesus debates the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they disagree almost on everything theologically, but they never disagree on what books are scripture. That no one ever says, well, that's in your Bible, Jesus, not in my Bible. So all of this is leading to this conclusion. What was the Bible Jesus had? What was the Bible that Jesus and the apostles had? Protestants have made the case, and I think you can make a really strong case, whether you're Protestant or not, or even if you're a believer or not, that the Old Testament Bible in Jesus' day is the

equivalent of the Protestant Old Testament now. It would be the equivalent of those 39 books. They were ordered differently and numbered differently, but it's the same 39 books. And we know this because we have people like Josephus and Philo who are Jews in the first century, telling us what books are in the canon and which books are they? The same canon as the Protestants. So this is why we hold that view. I'm sure our Catholic friends would say, yeah, but the church can pick new books when it wants to and because it's the authoritative church that is infallible. we would have disagreements there too, obviously. But I think that's the heartbeat of the case for the Protestant Old Testament.

And one of the key apologetic points is that when the 66 Protestant books, Catholics and Orthodox all use those same books. There might be additional books on the fringes, some of the Intertestamental books, but the core books, again, are all there. So yes, the disagreement exists, but it's kind of like the dispute you stated earlier. earlier, it's an in-house disagreement that I don't think is as substantive as many people make it out to be. And in some ways, this is a separate conversation, but given that the church starts and spread in so many different circles, it's kind of amazing that we do have the agreement that we have amidst that. That's another way to look at it. No, let me comment on that real quick, because that's a tremendously important point.

what I often tell people is that I think I think people are surprised by the wrong thing and here's what I mean by that people are surprised that there's any disagreement I'm like don't be surprised by that of course there's going to be disagreement that's the way the world works people are fallible and flawed and miscommunications and all kinds of things about a fallen world they're going to make some level of disagreement inevitable why are you surprised by disagreement what you should be shocked by is the remarkable amount of unity around the core books so fast you know you have a you have a you have coalition's coalescing around 22 out of 27 so rapidly, so fast, that's what's stunning. That's surprising. That's what's shocking. Not that there's some disagreement, but there's so much unity. And so I think that speaks to something going on in the early Christian movement that is notable and different than what people anticipate. So I think people are surprised by the wrong things. They really should be marveling over the unity that's achieved so fast rather than marveling over the disagreements that do happen. So last question for you, is the canon still open? Is it possible? And what would we do if we found like a letter from Paul to the church in Egypt that really seemed to be genuine?

Yeah. Man, I get this question all the time. Whenever I go lecture or speak on canon, which I do a lot, of course, I always open it up for Q&A if it's possible. And every time I get that question. So, you know, what someone says, is the can still open? Depends what they mean. certainly it's not open to any modern productions, just like the Shepherd of Hermes written in the second century, could never have gotten in because it wasn't an apostolic book. That means the canon and principles always closed. It's closed by definition because the only books that could be possible contenders or apostolic books. So what that means is that if someone wrote a really good book in the modern day,

you can't put it in the canon because it's closed in that way. So as much as we might love C.S. Lewis, sorry, you can't put Lewis in the canon, right? as much as someone might like, you know, one of our books. I laugh all the time. I was like, maybe you like one of my, my book can never be in the canon, no matter how good it is, because it's a modern book. I'm not an apostle. So it's closed in that sense. And it's always been closed in that sense.

You're asking the question, but yeah, but what if we discovered an apostolic book from the first century? And this raises complicated questions. And I think it would be very hard to know exactly how people would respond to that. I think if we could somehow authenticate it as Paul's, I think, you know, you would, you would have authoritative book from an apostle. We'd have to reckon with that. I think it's very unlikely that we will ever discover such a thing. So I think we're speaking very much in the realm of hypothesis here. But I think the principle I want to stand on is that the only way that ever comes up as a viable option is as if it's actually an apostolic book. It could never be any other book because

no other book could ever claim to be apostolic. It's interesting to make the distinction between what could happen and what, you know, likely would happen. Is it possible we find a letter? Yeah, we can't totally rule that out. But, you know, given what we know about God and preserving his word for the growth and needs of the church, it's just so unlikely that in the 20th century, 21st century, whatever, we'd come across this just hidden gem that has been lost for this long when we needed to understand God and how to live faithfully just seems so unlikely. And also part of authentication is its usage, which would not have, we don't have any record of its usage if it just found some random letter from Paul in the sand. So I think it's certainly implausible.

And, you know, I tell my students all the time when they say, is something possible, I'm always like, well, lots of things are possible. Exactly. You know, as historians, we don't really think about what's possible. We think about what's probable, what's likely, because that's the only way you can do history, right? if you just hypothesize about what's possible, you're never going to end with that because lots of things are possible. So yeah, it's a fun intellectual exercise. And I think it just brings us back to the theological ground of the whole thing, which is the only reason that exercise could even happen is because we already know the only viable candidates that could ever be in the New Testament

would have to be books that are apostolic in some way. Like I said, it was the last question. I'm pushing the time. But I'd be really curious. You've studied this probably as much or more than anybody? Like, what's your personal takeaway? How has it affected you, your devotion to life, your understanding of character of God to just probe so deeply into questions of canon? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, my intellectual journey started a long time ago, and it was always wrapped around my faith, too, because I was always curious, you know, is what I believe true, right? Maybe I believe things that aren't true, and how do I know? And so I went on that intellectual journey like many of us had to figure out whether the New Testament is trustworthy.

And there's lots of things about in the New Testament a person can study, right? But the canon has been particularly encouraging to me in my own personal faith, because every time I dig a little deeper into the historical evidence is I'm always struck again and again. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse. each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead? The Daily Bible app reads verses, reading plans and chapters

aloud, handy for the headphones moment of your day. Choose from versions like ESV, NIV, NIV, KJV, and more, and bookmark favorites to revisit later. Share inspiring messages with loved ones right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google play and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. Around how remarkable the church's unity of these books was from a very early time. Yeah, there were conversations about some. There were disputes here and there. But collectively as a whole, there's so much positive evidence for Christianity here.

And this is why, in the canonical discussion, I wish the skeptics would shift their arguments a little bit. Rather than trying to argue Christians didn't have unity around these books, you know, that wasn't settled to the fourth century. think the better route they should take is to just sort of admit, you know, it is true. Christians were unified around the core books from a very early time. And it is true that there was a substantial amount of agreement from a very early time. But I still think the books are wrong. I still think Christians are wrong. That's a better argument if you're skeptical.

Is why is the argument it have to be that Christians didn't have a core collection of books in order to hold skepticism? I think that's not as honest with the evidence. Because I think the evidence is really powerful. I think they just have to admit, yeah, Christians did have unity around these books, but I still think the books are mistaken and I still think Christians are wrong in what they believe. Okay, you can make that argument. That's fine. But I think that's a more honest argument for the evidence because I think the evidence is really strong. Mike, that's a great answer. I'm pushing the time that you committed to. So I hope you will come back again and join me on this program. Let's do number four. All right, let's do it. Friends, as you're listening, there's a number of times,

Mike or myself said something like there's a big backstory to this question that we just kind of probed into. If there's something we said, you say, you know what, I want to know the backstory on that. Maybe it's the authorship of 2nd Peter. Maybe it's how we know that we got the right books in the canon specifically compared to our Catholic friends. Let us know below, and we will definitely revisit this. Before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got a lot more programs coming up on the Bible, including some new videos we'll be doing on some interesting archaeological discoveries you won't want to miss. If you thought about studying apologetics,

we would love to have you at Talbot School Theology information below. And we just finished our full certificate program, completely updated it. So if you're not ready for a master's program,

but you want kind of a guided walk through some of the most important lectures on apologetics, there's a big discount code below. Make sure you check that out. And Mike, you also mentioned the question of canon, but the canon revisited.

make sure folks you check that out. I'm going to put that on my own reading list as well. And Mike, have a great afternoon. We'll do this again soon. Thanks, my friend. Thanks, Sean. Good to be with you. Hey, friends. If you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell show brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on campus and online programs

in apologetic, spiritual information, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Want to learn more about God and his will for your life one verse at a time? I'm Cornice Petway, co-host of the Your Daily Bible Verse podcast. I'm inviting you to tune in and subscribe at likea audio.com.