Hi Bob,
You wrote, "
The 66 that we have today - are the same 66 of the NT church."
Recreating history, are you?
The canon of the New Testament was not formally defined until the end of the fourth century by a particular council in Rome under Pope Damasus I (382) and particular councils in Northern Africa (Hippo in 393; Carthage in 397; Carthage in 419 under Augustine and Pope Boniface I). Before this time, the Church universal held to numerous different canons esp. with regard to the various epistles (this is a sample list, by no means exhaustive):
2 Peter
James
Jude
Revelation
2 John
3 John
Shepherd of Hermas
the Epistle of Barnabas
the Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles (Didache)
Apostolic Constitutions
Gospel According to the Hebrews
Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans
the Epistle of Clement
III Corinthians
Apocalypse of St Peter
Acts of St Paul
With regard to the OT canon, the list announced at Hippo in 393 (Canon #29) is as follows:
“Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read in the church under the title of divine writings. The canonical books are:---Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kings [i.e., 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings], the two books of Chronicles, Job, the Psalms of David, the five books of Solomon [i.e., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs,
Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus], the twelve books of the Prophets [i.e., Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi], Isaiah, Jeremiah [including
Baruch], Daniel, Ezekiel,
Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras [i.e., Ezra, Nehemiah],
two books of the Maccabees. The books of the New Testament are:---the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of S. Paul, one Epistle of S. Paul to the Hebrews, two Epistles of S. Peter, three Epistles of S. John, the Epistle of S. James, the Epistle of S. Jude, the Revelation of S. John. Concerning the confirmation of this canon, the transmarine Church [i.e., the Roman church] shall be consulted.” (
note the reference to the Church in Rome)
The Protestant International Bible Commentary says:
"Even if one holds that Jesus put His imprimatur upon only the 39 books of the Hebrew OT, as is implied above, he must admit that this fact escaped the notice of many of the early followers of Jesus, or that they rejected it, for they accepted as equally authoritative those extra books in the wider canon of the LXX (1) . . . Polycarp [one of John's disciples], Barnabas, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen--Greek and Latin Fathers alike--quote both classes of books, those of the Hebrew canon and the Apocrypha, without distinction. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in his City of God (18.42-43) argued for equal and identical divine inspiration for both the Jewish canon and the Christian canon." (2)
(1) The LXX, or Septuagint, was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. This is the version the ancient Christians, including the authors of the New Testament, mainly used. In fact, most of the Old Testament quotations found in the New Testament come from the LXX, not from the Hebrew version.
(2) Gerald F. Hawthorne, "Canon and Apocrypha of the Old Testament,”
International Bible Commentary, ed. F.F. Bruce, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 37, 35
Protestant scholar J.N.D. Kelley writes in
Early Christian Doctrine, (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 53-54:
"[The Old Testament] always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. . . . In the first two centuries . . . the Church seems to have accepted all, or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture. Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas . . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon, and Baruch. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary."
Marvin Tate, Old Testament professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote the following in his article, “Old Testament Apocalyptica and the Old Testament Canon,” in
Review and Expositor 65, 1968, p. 353:
“It seems clear that the Protestant position must be judged a failure on historical grounds, insofar as it sought to return to the canon of Jesus and the Apostles. The Apocrypha belongs to this historical heritage of the Church.”
