3. Canonicity
Measuring rod

4. Canonicity
Deut. 31:24-26: And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, that bare the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. 2 Kgs. 22:8

5. Canonicity
Deut. 17:18-19: And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of (that which is) before the priests the Levites: 19 and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;

6. Canonicity Age? Written in Hebrew or Greek? “Religious value”
Popular or majority opinion?

7. Canonicity
Num. 21:14: Wherefore it is said in the book of the Wars of Jehovah, Vaheb in Suphah, And the valleys of the Arnon,
2 Chron. 12:15: Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the histories of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer …

8. Age? Canonicity Written in Hebrew or Greek?
We have many Hebrew books not in Bible
Dan. 2:4b-7:28; Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26

9. Canonicity There is a “measuring rod” for Bible books.
We have seen what this measuring rod is not.
We are ready to ask what it is.

10. Canonicity
GOD

11. Canonicity
GOD
Lk. 24:27: “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets …”
John 10:35b: … “and the scripture cannot be broken”
Mt. 5:18: “Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law”
Jesus authenticated a number of items from the OT:
Jonah (Mt. 12:40), Daniel the prophet (Mt. 24:15), Noah and the flood (Lk. 17:27), the destruction of Sodom ( Lk. 17:29).

12. GOD Canonicity What about the New Testament books?
“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:35)
2 Pet. 3:15-16: And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard as also in all (his) epistles to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as (they do) also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

13. The church determines the cannon.
The church discovers the canon.
The church is the mother of the cannon.
The church is the child of the cannon.
The church is the magistrate of the canon.
The church is the minister of the canon.
The church is the regulator of the canon.
The church is the recognizer of the canon.
The church is the judge of the canon.
The church is the witness of cannon.
The church is the master of the canon.
The church is the servant of the canon.
--Geisler and Nix, p. 136.

14. GOD Canonicity 90-180 A.D. – First “collection effort”
145 A.D. “Marcion Canon”
A.D. cannon being finalized
Would you be willing to die for a book?