4. Beginner Bible Course: Why 66 books (and who decided that, anyway?)

EPISODE 4  The simple Bible overview of…WHY DOES THE BIBLE HAVE 66 BOOKS, AND WHO DECIDED THAT ANYWAY?

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...not everyone can be a Navy seal. The Navy seal requirements are stringent. Sorry, ladies, men only, sorry, man. You've got to be between the ages of 18 and 28 in a U citizen in active duty. Areti your vision has to be excellent. Your aptitude. You've got to have some stuff upstairs, physically there going to screen you to make sure you are a cut above. But the thing that actually separates the men from the real men is hell week 120 hours of no sleep and rigorous mental and physical torture. Not everyone can be a seal and in the same way, not every religious book, they want it to get into the Bible got into the Bible as we'll learn in a few WordPictures the Bible is much like a jigsaw puzzle.

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The individual books interlocking together to form an overall story. There are 66 pieces in the Protestant Bible. And did you know there were many ancient books that were want to be, is that tried to make the cut, but didn't, this can really bother some people and it should bother you unless you get a good answer to this important question. Are all the books in the Bible, the right books and only the right books. I think they got it right. There are 39 books in the old Testament and 27 in the new nailing down the criteria from who made the cut in the old Testament was easier. First of all, the Jews had already nailed down to 39 books.

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By the time Jesus arrived, they lumped them into three categories. The law, the writings, occasionally they called them the Psalms, which was the biggest writing and the profits. So it was already nailed down in to the council of <inaudible>. They kind of made it official beyond that the new Testament writers quote, nearly every one of the 39 old Testament books in their books of the new Testament. You'll normally find them in your Bible in bold print citations of the old Testament that they view as scripture. But this is a biggie for me. If you believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be the son of God, Jesus himself cited the three Jewish categories of the law, the writings or Psalms, and the prophets in Luke 24, 44, he said the law, the writings and the profits, they all speak of me.

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The new Testament is a little trickier. Jesus was gone by then. So of course he can't nail down. What was scripture? New Testament writers, occasionally speak of each other's work or books as scripture, but that's kind of circular reasoning. About 300 years after Jesus left, it was really important to know who made the cut to nail down the books that were God-breathed by men carried along by the Holy spirit. And so councils came together to decide the question who makes the cut as God's word in the new Testament. I'm going to summarize the criteria they used with six a words all beginning with a I'm pretty sure they didn't have these a words in front of them, but the criteria they use can be boiled down to these first day, authoritative author it Tatum.

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What does that mean? Did God claim to author that book? Does that say thus Seth, the Lord or the word of the Lord? Obviously, if God doesn't claim to have written the book, it probably shouldn't go in the book. The second I'll use the term apostle in the new Testament, those were the ones closest to Jesus. And that's what the criteria means. Was this book written by someone who was close to Jesus, or at least someone who was close to someone who was close to Jesus. The third, a word is accepted. When those council people came together, got on their knees and said, Lord, God, we need to know what is your word and what isn't, which one should make the cut.

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One would think that God would guide those well-intended prayer, saturated people to go thumbs up or thumbs down on the right books. The fourth was authentic. Does this have a genuine ring to it? Does it sound like how God would be or act? And if it didn't have that genuine ring, it didn't make the cut number five. Is it accurate? In other words, does it contradict itself? Is that consistent with itself or contradictory? A lot of you might say, Oh, I've heard there's a lot of contradictions in the Bible. You know, I think I'm going to save that for another word picture.

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It makes sense that if this is written by God, it would not be self contradicting. None of my students would ever write a report on say Lincoln's assassination and give two different dates. I would circle that and say, get your facts straight. And the last a, is this, is it active or alive? Does it have the power to change lives? This is much different than does that inspire me. Shakespeare can move you scripture. On the other hand says they will cut deep into your heart and drive you to change. Those were the criteria for the new Testament and which ones made the cut.

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So why does the Catholic Bible have additional books left out in Protestant Bibles? Some of the Catholic books like first and second Maccabees are excellent history just prior to the time of Jesus. But the counsels that met said they do not meet the tests for what is God-breathed scripture. So my final question would be, could we add a 67th book? Why not an upgrade to scripture? You know, why couldn't God upgrade scripture with Bible 2.0 for today for that you can look at the last book of the Bible. The last chapter of the last book of the Bible, God picks up the human writer, carries him along.

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It says don't put anything more into this book or you're in trouble. Don't take anything out of this book or you're in trouble again, leave it alone. It's complete these 66 pieces are my word to you. So let's get back to the contradiction question. Does the Bible contradict itself? And secondly is the Bible unscientific. I'd like to answer that in my next wordpicture.