Early Church Canonization

Have you ever thought of how we got the Bible that we have and why some churches uses other books in addition to the sixty-six in our bible? Catholic bible includes other books known as Apocrypha, then how do we know if the books in our Bible are the books God wants us to have and that other books that are not inspired by Him. In the early church, many books were moving around the churches and some of these books carried teachings which caused a lot of problems in the church. A lot of controversial issues were raised about what Christians should believe, how Christians should behave, and who gets to decide both. Some of the early church leaders gathered together to decide which books were worth to be included in the Bible, and which ones were

This is supported by Alexander (2006) when he says that the word canon signifies a rule and it was used by Christian Fathers to designate the inspired scriptures. http://www.foundationsforfreedom.net/Topics/Bible/Bible_Canonization.html defines canonisation as the process by which the community of God's people accept certain scriptures as divinely inspired and authoritative. According to https://www.thefree dictionary.com/canonization canonisation is to include in the biblical canon, to approve as within canon law or to treat as sacred. Considering the above definitions I can define canonisation as a process by which the Christian community determine whether writings are inspired by God so as to consider those scriptures sacred and to include them in the biblical canon.

When a book conforms to the canon or passes the test of authenticity it becomes a canonical book. So canonisation is the process used by the church to authenticate scriptures for use by the church. The community of God's people only familiarised with the different books after getting copies of them and that is the reason why canonization happened over periods of time. A certain criterion was used to affirm the books of the bible or determine the canon of the scripture. This will help us to understand

Busenitz on http.www.bearcreekchurch.org-Canonicity says that every book in the New Testament was written under apostolic authority either by an Apostle or someone who was closely tied to the ministry. The writer goes on further to say the canon is closed since there are no longer apostles. Time of writing also determines whether the book was used by the early church or was first accepted by people who witnessed the events that took place.

Rudd on http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-criteria-of-apostolic-fathers.htm elaborates that the traditional understanding of canon formation is that the church first approved only the Old Testament writings as scripture and later accorded scriptural status to the Gospels and Epistles as they began to circulate among the churches. Any book written after the apostolic age cannot be regarded as authoritative as the writer will not be either an Apostle or ministry