Perhaps the most notable is the passage at the end of Mark, Mark 16:9-20. All recent versions separate, in some manner, these verses from the remainder of the text and offer some explanation.

        The problem of Mark 16 is unique. The evidence is not in agreement in either direction. The Vatican and Sinaitic Manuscripts, the two most important uncials, do not include this passage. The Vatican Manuscript, however, as we noted before, contains a gap on the page where this text would go, as if it were to have been filled in at a later time. But the evidence supporting this passage is likewise impressive. The other three early uncials (Alexandrian, Ephraem, and Bezae) all include the passage, as do other early and late uncials, the Vulgate, the Old Syriac manuscript, the Peshitta version, and others. Besides, there is a statement from Iranaeus, an early Christian writer, which clearly shows the existence of Mark 16:9-20 in the second century and the belief that Mark was its author.

        As to its importance, the subject covered in this passage is recorded elsewhere so there is no danger of a lesson being lost. And the material covered does not endanger a principle of our faith.

    The Canon of the Scriptures.  All of the preceding text has been concerned with recovery of the text of the Bible – how it was written down, what survived, how scholars tell what is accurate and what is not. But the subject is not yet complete.

    What remains is to discuss how we know what books are in the Bible. There were not simply 66 books written which are of religious consequence. There are literally thousands of ancient books that relate to Bible history. And aside from the 66 that we count as part of the inspired Bible, there are hundreds more that are of the same subjects and in the same languages. They read the same. They were written in the same time frames. And sometimes they were written by church fathers who were contemporary with some of the inspired Bible authors. So how do we know which books should be counted as "inspired"? Why are there 66 books in the Bible, and not 75 or 23?

    The English word canon goes back to the Greek word kanon and to the Hebrew qaneh. Its basic meaning is "reed" with our English word "cane" being derived from it.  A reed was sometimes used as a measuring rod, so the word kanon came to mean a standard or a rule. It was also used to refer to a list or index, and when applied to the Bible, refers to the list of books that are accepted as divinely inspired.

    There is a difference between the authority of the book and the "canonicity" of a book. The books canonicity depends on its authority. Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians. This letter claims divine authority (I Corinthians 14:37). It had authority from the moment it was written. But it was not referred to as being part of the canon until it was included in a list of accepted writings that was formed later. At a later time it was accepted as being part of the canon because of its authority. No church group could make a book authoritative. The books possess their own authority and had that authority long before there were any councils passing judgment on the "authority" of inspired writings.

    Old Testament Canon.  Evidence shows that the Old Testament was gathered by the time of Jesus. There are over 300 quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament. According to Jesus himself, the Old Testament included the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms (Luke 24:44). This division is undoubtedly equivalent to the three divisions of the Hebrew scripture – the law, the prophets, and the writings.  Jesus also gave some idea concerning the actual books included in the Old Testament.  In Luke 11:51,  he speaks of the time "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah,  who perished between the altar and the sanctuary".  Of course, Abel was in Genesis, and the last martyr mentioned, Zechariah, is mentioned in II Chronicles 24:20-21. Now, the order of the Jewish Bible was not the same as ours (Chronicles was placed at the end).  So the Bible that Jesus knew began with Genesis and stretched to Chronicles with all the books in between.

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    About 90 A.D., a council of rabbis met at Jamnia. (After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., Jamnia had become the home of the Sanhedrin.) Under the leadership of Rabbi Akiba, the council officially decided the list of authoritative books that were to be included in the Old Testament. But the list they published was simply the list that had been informally accepted by the church for some time.

    Josephus, writing in the first century, stated the following about the canon of the Old Testament: "We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time. Of these, five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws and the traditional history from the birth of man down to the death of the lawgiver. This period falls only a little short of three thousand years. From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes, who succeeded Xerxes as king of Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets".

    As discussed earlier, the 22 books included by Josephus are the 39 that are included in today’s Old testament.

    In the 3rd century A.D., Origen confirmed Josephus’ list of 22 books. Giving both their Hebrew and Greek titles, he lists them as follows: (1-5), the 5 books of Moses, (6) Joshua, (7) Judges-Ruth, (8) I and II Samuel, (9) I and II Kings, (10) Chronicles, (11) Ezra-Nehemiah, (12) Psalms, (13) Proverbs, (14) Ecclesiastes, (15) song of Solomon, (16) Isaiah, (17) Jeremiah-Lamentations, (18) Daniel, (19) Ezekiel, (20) Job, and (21) Esther.  Origen omits the Book of the Twelve (the minor prophets) but this is an obvious unintentional omission since it is necessary to make up the list of 22 books.

    New Testament Canon.  About the middle of the 2nd century, Justin Martyr, one of the church fathers and a noted writer and historian, stated that in the Sunday worship service assemblies, the "memoirs of the prophets" and the "writings of the prophets" were read. So we know that shortly after the death of the apostles, their writings were being used in the worship services along with writings from the Old Testament.

    Now when the apostles had died, the Bible of the early church was still the Old Testament. It was simply all that they had. The apostles began to write to the churches, giving instructions as God inspired them. These letters established doctrine and gave standards for living and worshipping. When the letters of the apostles began to circulate, they were read in the services because they were about Jesus, about living good lives, and about the plan of salvation. And, as copies flourished, they began to be gathered into groups. The writings of Paul would have been gathered together, the gospels would have been grouped together, and so on. These collections were then distributed. Now, since these collections were gathered and distributed at different times and places, it is not disturbing that there was controversy concerning which books or letters were inspired.  While some were accepted quickly, others were more controversial, such as Hebrews.

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    Lists of the accepted books began to circulate. Tertullian stated that by 150 A.D., the Church in Rome had compiled a list of the New Testament books matching our list of today. We have 32,000 quotes from before 325 AD, from Irenaeus (182-188 A.D.), Justin Martyr (before 150 A.D.), Polycarp (107 A.D.), Ignatius (100 A.D.), Clement (96 A.D.) and many other second and third century fathers. All but eleven verses of the New Testament could be reconstructed through their writings alone.

    One of the more interesting lists is the Muratorian Fragment dating from 170 A.D.  It was discovered in 1740 by Ludovico Muratori in a 7th century manuscript in the Ambrosian Library in Milan. The fragment is written in common Latin but it is almost certainly a translation of a much earlier Greek document.

    The fragment begins with what is probably a mutilated reference to Mark, and Luke and John are then mentioned as the third and fourth gospels, respectively. It is probable that Matthew was mentioned in a missing portion of the original. Thirteen letters are attributed to Paul and are enumerated in the following order: Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans, Philemon, Titus, and Timothy (the two letters to the Corinthians, Thessalonians, and Timothy are acknowledged). The letters to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians are specifically excluded as forgeries, and the existence of other unacceptable works is mentioned. Finally, Jude and two letters of John are mentioned approvingly, as are the Wisdom of Solomon and the apocalypses of John and Peter (although the latter is said to be rejected by some).  The date of the original Greek composition lying behind the present Latin text has generally been agreed to lie in the middle or end of the second century because of the statement in the fragment that "Hermas wrote the Shepherd very recently in our times in the city of Rome, when Bishop Pius, his brother, was sitting in the chair of the Church of Rome".

    In the 3rd century, Origen names all of the New Testament books, but states that Hebrews, James, II and III John, and Jude were questioned by some. In the 4th century, Eusebius also mentions all 27 of the New Testament books. He, however, also mentions some disputed books (James, II Peter, II and III John, and Jude) but says that they were accepted by the majority. In 367 A.D. Athanasius of Alexandria published the 27 books that were accepted in his time and these are the same 27 that we accept today.

    Other than books that we accept today, were there other books that were in question? Yes! Of particular importance were two; the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. The first was written near the close of the apostolic age and the second is an allegory that dates to the first half of the 2nd century. These books were never above suspicion however. In the Muratorian fragment, for example, it was stated that the Shepherd of Hermas could be read in public worship but not counted among the approved writings.

    What About the Apocrypha?  There is little question today about what books are accepted as inspired writings. All Bibles have the same 66 books. But the question of authenticity has been settled differently between the Catholic church and the rest of Christianity. There are several other books collectively known as the Apocrypha.

    Apocrypha means ‘hidden things’ in Greek. The first set is comprised of books which are included in some version of the canonical Bible, but which have been excluded at one time or another, for textual or doctrinal issues. These are called ‘Deuterocanonical’, which means ‘books added to the canon. The second set is comprised of other apocryphal texts which have not been canonized, but which nevertheless shed light on the Bible and its history.

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    With one exception, all of these books are considered ‘Old Testament’.  The apocryphal New Testament "Letter of Paul to the Laodiceans", was once incorporated in many versions of the Bible. However Laodiceans is now considered just a compilation of other Epistles, and is omitted from contemporary Bibles.

    The list of Deuterocanonical books is as follows:
        1. The First Book of Esdras
        2. The Second Book of Esdras
        3. Tobit
        4. Judith
        5. Additions to the Book of Esther
        6. The Wisdom of Solomon
        7. Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
        8. Baruch
        9. The Letter of Jeremiah
        10. The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men
        11. Susanna
        12. Bel and the Dragon
        13. The Prayer of Manasseh
        14. The First Book of Maccabees
        15. The Second Book of Maccabees

    The list of other apocryphal writings includes the following books:
        1. The Gospel of Thomas
        2. The Sybilline Oracles
        3. The Book of Enoch
        4. Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve
        5. The Books of Adam and Eve
        6. The Book of Jasher

    Three of the Deuterocanonical books (I & II Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh) are not considered inspired by the Catholic Church. In Catholic Bibles the remaining twelve are scattered among the undisputed 39 books of the Old Testament.

    The Old Testament Apocrypha covers a broad range of subjects and literary styles. They cover historical, legendary, prophetic, and ethical subject matter.

        1. Historical.  I Esdras is a collection of most of the material found in Ezra (Esdras is a Greek form of Ezra) and other legends. It is sometimes known as the "Greek Ezra". I Maccabees is an important source of information on Jewish history in the 2nd century B.C written before the birth of Jesus. The name derives from Maccabeus, the surname of Judas who led the Jews in revolt against their Syrian overlords. II Maccabees concerns the same historical period.

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        2. Legendary.  The Book of Tobit was written about 200 B.C. It tells of a religious Israelite carried to Nineveh as a captive. Its purpose is to encourage the keeping of the Law. The Book of Judith refers to a Jewish widow who charms and kills the leader of an enemy army, delivering her city and people from destruction. It was probably written during the Maccabean revolt.  Additions to Esther are expansions of Esther probably handed down orally.  The Additions to Daniel contain folk stories and legends that could not have originated much earlier than 100 B.C.

        3. Prophetic.  Baruch supposedly comes from the hand of Jeremiah’s friend of the same name, but the contents make that impossible. The contents also fixes the date at some point after the fall of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) The letter of Jeremiah is a brief thought on the vanities of idolatry. The Prayer of Mannaseh, written in the 2nd century B.C., is a prayer by King Mannaseh after he was taken captive to Babylon. II Esdras is a collection of materials from different times (about 100 B.C. to 200 A.D.) of very inferior quality.

        4. Ethical.  Ecclesiasticus is one of the chief works of the Apocrypha. It was written by a Palestinian Jew about 200 B.C. in a style similar to Proverbs.  The Wisdom of Solomon is a book of Jewish philosophy that can be traced to Alexandria in the 1st century A.D.

    Why are these books rejected by Christians?  There are many reasons, but basically, these books were rejected by early church fathers, they were not included in lists of authorized books by the most authoritative bodies of Christians in the early days of the church, and they have always been clouded in uncertainty and confusion.  There is too much contradiction between these books and authorized books in the Bible.

    According to Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731 A.D.) by the Venerable Bede, Caedmon (ca. 650 A.D. - ca. 680 A.D.) wrote alliterative poetry on biblical themes.  We know of Caedmon only through Bede’s history.  A portion of Caedmon’s "The History of Creation" is paraphrased in it.  Bede was not only the first historian of England but he was also a theologian and was made a saint. He prepared the earliest known written English translation of any part of the Bible (ca. 673 A.D. –735 A.D.). Just before he died, it has been reported, he translated the Gospel of John, or a portion of it, into Anglo-Saxon. No copies have survived. 

    Other early translations include the Book of Psalms by Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne (640 A.D. –709 A.D.); the Ten Commandments and other parts of Exodus 21-23 by Alfred the Great (849 A.D. –899 A.D.), king of the West Saxons; and an interlinear English translation in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Lindisfarne Gospels were created by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne (d. 687 A.D.) on the island by the same name in northeast England just off the coast of Northumberland. This illuminated manuscript is a version of the Latin Vulgate. In the 10th century, Aldred added an interlinear English translation to the book, the earliest one in English of all the gospels.

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    The first hand-written English language manuscripts of the Bible were produced about 1380 A.D. by Oxford theologian John Wycliffe. Curiously, he was also the inventor of bifocal eyeglasses.  Wycliffe spent many of his latter years arguing against the excesses of the Catholic church (the Pope demanded a great deal of money). How much of the Bible Wycliffe personally translated is unknown.  Wycliffe’s translation was from the 4th century Latin Vulgate since the Hebrew and Greek languages were unavailable to him. His secretary, John Purvey, assisted a great deal and, after Wycliffe’s death, undertook a complete revision. It is Purvey’s revis ion that was the prevailing translation in the English speaking church until the 16th century. Though he died a nonviolent death, the Pope was so infuriated by Wycliffe’s teachings that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered his bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river!

    Johannes Gutenburg invented the printing press in the 1450’s, and the first book to ever be printed was the Bible. It was in Latin rather than English.  With the onset of the Reformation in the early 1500’s, the first printings of the Bible in the English language were produced illegally and at great personal risk of those involved.

    William Tyndale is the real architect of the English Bible.  He worked most of his translating years alone, but had help from time to time. In 1509 the monk/scholar Erasmus came to Cambridge. In 1510, Tyndale came to Cambridge for study.  He perhaps studied Greek under Erasmus. After his training, Tyndale began his life’s work, to give to the English people a translation based not on Latin but on the original Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus had published the first printed New Testament in Greek/Latin in 1516 and Tyndale set out to translate it into English. Tyndale once told one of his followers: "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scripture than thou doest". Latin was the language for centuries of scholarship and it was understood by virtually every European who could read or write.  Erasmus’ Latin was not the Vulgate translation of Jerome, but his own fresh rendering of the Greek New Testament text that he had collated from six or seven partial New Testament manuscripts into a complete Greek New Testament. The Latin that Erasmus translated from the Greek was vastly superior to the Vulgate. Pope Leo X’s declaration that "the fable of Christ was very profitable to him" infuriated the people of God.

    With Erasmus’ work in 1516, the die was cast. Martin Luther declared his intolerance with the Roman Church on Halloween in 1517, by nailing 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Door. Luther, who would be exiled in the months following the Diet of Worms Council in 1521 that was designed to martyr him, would translate the New Testament into German from Erasmus’ Greek/Latin New Testament and publish it in September of 1522. Simultaneously, William Tyndale would become committed to translate that same Erasmus text into English. It could not, however, be done in England.

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    Tyndale showed up on Luther’s doorstep in Cologne in 1525, and by year’s end had translated the New Testament into English.  Tyndale was fluent in eight languages and is considered by many to be the primary architect of today’s English language.  Already hunted because of the rumor spread abroad that such a project was underway, inquisitors and bounty hunters were on Tyndale’s trail to abort the effort. Tyndale fled Cologne and in 1526 Tyndale printed the first English New Testament. They were burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all.  One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale’s forbidden book.

    The Tyndale New Testament was the first ever printed in the English language. Its first printing occurred in 1526, but only one complete copy of the first printing exists.  Any Edition printed before 1570 is very rare and valuable, particularly pre-1540 editions and fragments. Tyndale’s flight was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11 years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of cotton and sacks of flour. By 1530, Tyndale had translated the Pentateuch; then followed Jonah in 1531, Genesis in 1534, and revised editions of the New Testament. In the end, Tyndale was caught, betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended.  Tyndale was imprisoned for 500 days before he was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. His last words were, "Lord, open King of England’s eyes". The page included is from one of the two surviving copies of a run of 3,000 published at Worms, now in the British Museum.  Coverdale and John Rogers were loyal disciples the last six years of Tyndale’s life, and they carried the project forward and even accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old Testament, and in 1535 he printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of Luther’s German text and the Latin as sources. Thus, the first complete English Bible was printed on October 4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible.  John Rogers went on to print the second complete English Bible in 1537.  He printed it under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew", as a considerable part of this Bible was the translation of Tyndale, whose writings had been condemned by the English authorities.  It is a composite made up of Tyndale’s Pentateuch and New Testament (1534-1535 edition) and Coverdale’s Bible and a small amount of Roger’s own translation of the text. It remains known most commonly as the Matthews Bible.

    In 1539, politics reversed themselves, and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canturbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to publish the "Great Bible". It became the first English Bible authorized for public use, as it was distributed to every church, chained to the pulpit, and a reader was even provided so that the illiterate could hear the Word of God in plain English. It would seem that William Tyndale’s last wish had been granted, just three years after his martyrdom. Cranmer’s Bible, published by Coverdale, was known as the Great Bible due to its great size: a large Myles pulpit folio measuring over 14 inches tall. Seven editions of this version were printed between April of 1539 and December of 1541. The page at right is the woodcut title page of the Great Bible.

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