Canon means a recognised collection
“Canon” comes from a word for a measuring rule and came to name the writings a religious community receives as Scripture. A book did not become influential simply because it appeared on one late list. Biblical writings were composed, copied, translated, read aloud in worship, taught, disputed, and handed on within Jewish and Christian communities over many centuries.
It helps to distinguish three questions. Composition asks when and how a writing originated. Textual transmission asks how its wording was copied and preserved. Canon asks which writings a community recognises as Scripture. Evidence about one question does not automatically settle the others.
Israel’s Scriptures
Law, Prophets, and Writings
The Jewish Scriptures grew as a collection over time. The Torah held foundational authority, and prophetic books and other writings were gathered and received gradually. The Jewish Tanakh is arranged as Torah, Prophets, and Writings. It contains the same books as the Protestant Old Testament but counts and orders them differently.
Hebrew and Aramaic tradition
The medieval Masoretic manuscripts preserve a carefully transmitted Hebrew and Aramaic consonantal text, to which the Masoretes added vowel signs, accents, and scribal notes. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide much earlier witnesses and show both substantial continuity and some textual variety in the Second Temple period.
The Greek Septuagint
Jewish translators began rendering the Scriptures into Greek before the Christian era. Greek-speaking Christians used these translations extensively. Septuagint collections also transmitted books or additions not found in the later rabbinic Hebrew canon.
Apostolic writings
From circulated texts to a shared collection
Paul’s letters and accounts of Jesus circulated among early churches before there was a complete New Testament. By the late second century, the four Gospels, Acts, and a substantial collection of Pauline letters were widely used. Some books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation) were received unevenly for a time. Other respected works, including the Shepherd of Hermas and 1 Clement, were read by Christians but did not enter the final twenty-seven-book collection.
Early Christians did not use a single mechanical test. They asked whether a writing was connected to apostolic testimony, agreed with the church’s inherited rule of faith, and was used broadly and continuously in worship and teaching. These considerations worked together within the life of the churches.
A concise timeline
Landmarks in reception
Jewish Scriptural collections before the first century
The Law, Prophets, Psalms, and other writings were copied, interpreted, and read across Jewish communities. Manuscript and translation evidence cautions against imagining one uniform book table everywhere at once.
Gospels and apostolic letters first and second centuries
Christian writings circulated between churches. Irenaeus defended a four-Gospel collection around 180. The Muratorian fragment, a Latin list usually dated to the late second century (some argue for the fourth), names most of the present New Testament along with the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Peter. Surviving codices show a growing, recognisable core.
Clarifying disputed books third and fourth centuries
Origen and Eusebius distinguished acknowledged, disputed, and rejected writings. Athanasius’ 39th Festal Letter (367) gives the earliest surviving list matching all twenty-seven books of the present New Testament.
Regional councils and continuing use fourth and fifth centuries
Synods at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419) listed the Scriptural books for their churches. Their Old Testament lists included Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, and 1–2 Maccabees. These decisions recorded and guided reception that was already under way; no single meeting invented the Bible.
Reformation-era definitions sixteenth century
Reformers gave renewed priority to the Hebrew canon for the Old Testament and commonly printed the other ancient books separately as Apocrypha. The Council of Trent (1546) solemnly defined the Catholic list, confirming the one already affirmed at the Council of Florence (1442). The Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) kept the Apocrypha for “example of life and instruction of manners” but not to establish doctrine; the Westminster Confession (1646) gave them no authority in the church.
Christian collections
Why Bible tables differ
Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches receive the same twenty-seven New Testament books. The Ethiopian broader canon adds several church-order writings, and the Syriac Peshitta tradition historically lacked 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation. The main visible differences concern the Old Testament and the way additional ancient books are named, ordered, and valued.
Protestant
Most Protestant Bibles contain thirty-nine Old Testament books and twenty-seven New Testament books. The Old Testament corresponds to the contents of the Jewish Tanakh, arranged and counted differently.
Catholic
Catholic Bibles contain forty-six Old Testament books and twenty-seven New Testament books. Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1–2 Maccabees, and Greek additions to Esther and Daniel are called deuterocanonical.
Eastern Orthodox
Orthodox churches receive the Septuagint as their traditional Old Testament. Besides the books in Catholic Bibles, Orthodox Bibles typically add 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, and Psalm 151, with 4 Maccabees often in an appendix. Exact tables and naming vary between Greek, Slavic, and other editions.
Oriental Orthodox
Canons differ among the Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Armenian, Syriac, and Malankara churches. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has the broadest canon, traditionally 81 books, including 1 Enoch and Jubilees.
Words learners should recognise
- Canonical
- Received by a community as belonging to its Scriptures.
- Deuterocanonical
- A term used chiefly by Catholics and Orthodox for Old Testament books received as canonical but historically distinguished from the protocanonical books.
- Apocrypha
- A variable term often used by Protestants for books printed between the Testaments but not treated as canonical.
- Pseudepigrapha
- Modern scholarly label for diverse ancient writings attributed to biblical figures but outside most biblical canons.
- Septuagint
- The family of ancient Greek translations of Jewish Scriptures, usually abbreviated LXX.
- Vulgate
- The influential Latin biblical tradition associated especially with Jerome’s translations and revisions.
Study responsibly
Ask better questions of a Bible edition
Identify the tradition
Do not describe one collection as simply “the Christian Bible” when comparing traditions. State whether an edition is Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or from a particular church.
Separate canon from manuscript
A manuscript can contain a different selection or order without functioning as a formal canonical decree. Physical codices and official church lists answer related but distinct questions.
Read primary evidence in context
A quotation from one father or council may show an important witness, but not necessarily universal agreement in every place and century.
Avoid conspiracy stories
The surviving evidence shows a long, public process of reading and debate. No ruler chose the Bible at Nicaea. Books left out of the canon were not secrets waiting to be rediscovered: early Christian writers named and discussed them, even where their manuscripts came to light only in modern times.
Further study
Continue with academic and primary resources
These resources let you move beyond the overview and inspect the evidence more closely.
Canon, text, and books belong together
Continue to manuscript transmission to learn how scholars compare the wording of biblical witnesses, or browse the 66 books of the Protestant canon in the Scripture explorer.