The list of apostolic writings, set aside as Scripture for the church became known in later centuries as the canon of the New Testament. The word canon comes from the Greek word kanon, meaning "norm" or "rule." It appears only four times in the New Testament (II Corinthians 10:13, 10:15-16; Galatians 6:16). At the time these writings were first brought together into a fixed collection the term kanon had not yet come into use as a means of describing the compilation itself. The term did not become a descriptor of the collected works of the apostles until about mid-fourth century when it came to indicate the "recognized books" of the orthodox Greco-Romans as they evolved into in their eastern Byzantine and western Latin factions.

Some writers claim that all writings of the apostles had the status of "Scripture" but not all such writings were canonical. The argument is that there was a basic difference between "scripture" and the later list of approved books known as the "canon." This artificial distinction has its basis in ideology not verifiable evidence. There is no extant evidence that the apostles or the early Church of God recognized any apostolic writing as scripture other than that preserved in the New Testament. For the first-century Church of God the term Scripture referred to the recognized Hebrew text, that is, the Hebrew Scriptures John 10:35, and the body of first-century works, later called the New Testament, selected to be part of an apostolic complement to the Hebrew Scriptures (II Timothy 3:16; I Peter 2:6).

From a scholarly view exactly how the Scriptures came into being is unclear. There are many theories. Coming from a minimalist perspective, the majority of 20th century American scholars dealing with this issue argue that the New Testament consists primarily of works by authors other than the apostles. We disagree.

We propose an alternative model based upon the proposition that the apostles themselves took responsibility for the creation of the New Testament. This is a model, however, based upon the internal evidence of the New Testament and the writings of the early church fathers. It is a presumption that presents several hypotheses, certainly necessitating further refinement, that require testing against relevant literary evidence and the archeological record. This concept, then, deals with the presumption that the New Testament is an apostolic complement to the Hebrew Scriptures.

Taken from The First Christians by Michael P. Germano and edited for the worldwide web. Copyright �1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2000 by Michael P. Germano. All Rights Reserved.

Page last edited: 01/26/06 07:12 PM

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