When was the Holy Bible canonized and by whom?

Answer 1

AnswerIn 400BC, Ezra compiled the Old Testament.

In 90AD was the Council of Jamnia (the Old Testament with no Apocrypha).

In 206AD - Codex Barococcio (64 of the 66 books)

In 373AD, the historic Christian church agreed on the 66 books of The Bible.

Alternate Answer

At the time of Christ, there was no Old Testament Canon.

The Sadducees accepted only the first five books of the Bible, for example.

The authority of and even the existence of the Council of Jamnia is called into question by some historians.

There was some discussion in the Early Church.

Cyril excluded Revelation, for example, whereas Athanasius included Baruch, as another example.

Following the toleration of the faith by Emperor Constantine, the Council of Rome decreed a 73 book Canon in 382 AD.

This Canon was confirmed by subsequent Councils at Hippo, Carthage, Nicaea, Florence, Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II, for example.

The word 'canonize' basically means to officially recognize the law, or person, as an integral part of the teachings of the Church.

Answer 2

During the Prophetic era, each prophet recorded the prophecy in writing, if and when God commanded it. The earliest work in collating the texts was undertaken by the group of sages called the Men of Hizkiah, who are mentioned in Proverbs 25:1. They were active about 125 years before the destruction of the first Temple. About two centuries later, at the time of the building of the second Temple, the last prophets were aware that prophecy would soon end.

The highest Torah-authority among the Jews, which in ancient times was known simply as the Zekeinim (elders), was later called the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin contained seventy elders, the greatest sages of each generation. At the time of the building of the second Temple, an enhanced Sanhedrin containing one hundred and twenty sages was formed, known as the Men of the Great Assembly, including Ezra and Nehemiah; Daniel and his colleagues Chananiah, Mishael and Azariah; Mordechai; and the last three prophets, Chagai, Zechariah and Malachi. This group instituted many of the Rabbinical decrees; they finalized the text of the prayers and blessings; they finalized the wording of the early parts of the Pesach Haggadah; they did the earliest editing of the Mishna; and it was they who canonized and sealed the Tanakh (Bible). According to the Talmudic chronology, this was 2350 years ago.

Answer 3

Hebrew Bible Canon: Our tradition is that from the time of the First Destruction, God's presence was no longer felt as clearly as before (see Deuteronomy 31:17-18). In addition, exile is not conducive to prophecy (Mechilta, parshat Bo). At that time, the last of the prophets realized that prophecy would soon cease; and that the dispersal of the Jewish people, plus the almost continuous tribulations from the First Destruction onwards, made it imperative to seal the canon of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The Sages of the time, including the last living prophets, convened a special synod for a couple of decades, which was called the Men of the Great Assembly (Mishna, Avot ch.1). This group, who functioned some 2360 years ago, composed the blessings and the basic prayers of the siddur (prayerbook) and the early portions of the Passover Haggadah, made many of the Rabbinical decrees, and (most importantly) sealed the canon of the Tanakh. It was they, for example, who set the twelve Minor Prophets as (halakhically) a single book, and who set the books of the Tanakh in their traditional order (see Talmud, Bava Batra 14b). It was the Men of the Great Assembly whom Esther had to approach when she felt that the Divinely inspired Scroll of Esther should be included in the canon (see Talmud, Megilla 7a).

Since the sealing of the Tanakh, no Jewish sage has ever claimed prophecy.

Answer 4

The first step was Judaism's canonisation of the Hebrew Bible. During the fourth to second century BCE, the Law (Torah, known to Christians as the Pentateuch) reached final form and canonical status. Prior to the Council of Jamnia, which appeared to have taken place around 90 CE, there does not seem to have been a Jewish concept of one Bible. The Council is believed to have finally defined the Jewish canon, except for the Ethiopina Jews who do not accept the Council's legitimacy. However, some scholars have recently suggested that the Council was not about canonicity at all, asserting that they were actually dealing with other concerns entirely.

By the fourth century, the Christian church began to concern itself about exactly what Old Testament books should be included, and Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Palestine to discover which Hebrew books belonged in the canon.

The first to unmistakably quote the New Testament as scripture, "as it is written," seems to have been Basilides, a gnostic teacher at Alexandria in the first part of the second century CE. And the first to use the term, "New Testament," was Irenaeus, who flourished about 180 CE. He is also the first to give the explicit formation of four gospels, and exactly four. In fact, the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were never mentioned together until 180 CE. The canon of Muratori, a Roman document of the second half of the second century, states that what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians of a particular church is meant for all. This inspired the canonisation of the Epistles.

Bishop Eusebius of Caesaria, a leading church historian in the fourth century, wrote, "It will be well, at this point, to classify the New Testament writings. We must, of course, put first the holy quartet of the Gospels, followed by the Acts of the Apostles. The next place in the list goes to Paul's Epistles, and after them we must recognise the Epistle called 1 John, likewise 1 Peter. To these may be added, if thought proper, the Revelation of John …. These are classed as Recognised Books. Those that are disputed, yet familiar to most, include the Epistles known as James, Jude, and 2 Peter, and those called 2 and 3 John, either the work of the evangelist or of someone else with the same name." Eusebius apparently also listed 1 Clement in his canon, and considered Hebrews a disputed book.

The New Testament, as we now know it, was formally accepted by a council at Rome in 382.

The sixteenth century Council of Trent finally established the Catholic Old Testament canon, in response to Protestant arguments. The sixteenth century was really the point at which Catholic and Protestant Churches all identified exactly what books were regarded as forming the Bible.

Answer 5

Canonization of the New Testament happened as the churches accepted the books. Twenty of the 27 books were accepted by 180 AD and all 27 by 367 AD. The last two books accepted were St. John and Revelation.

Answer 6

The Jewish Old Testament was first canonized between 200BC and 200AD.

The Christian Bible was first canonized around 140 AD. The Christian Bible as it stands today was canonized about 367.

Answer 7

The canonization of biblical texts which you refer to as "The Bible" was decided upon at the Council of Trent. Initial biblical texts were decided upon by the Catholic church, however there were disagreements with that decision (and other Christian issues) which resulted in the Council of Trent. Here is the text of the council, related to the subject of biblical texts: Further discussion of other texts took place during the 18th council of Trent.

SESSION THE FOURTH
Celebrated on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year MDXLVI. DECREE CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES
The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,--lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic Sec presiding therein,--keeping this [Page 18] always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament--seeing that one God is the author of both --as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession. And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod.
They are as set down here below:
of the Old Testament:
the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second.
Of the New Testament:
the four Gospels, according [Page 19] to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle.

But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema. Let all, therefore, understand, in what order, and in what manner, the said Synod, after having laid the foundation of the Confession of faith, will proceed, and what testimonies and authorities it will mainly use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church.

DECREE CONCERNING THE EDITION, AND THE USE, OF THE SACRED BOOKSMoreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,--considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,--ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.
Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,--in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, --wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,--whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,--hath held and doth hold; [Page 20] or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established.
And wishing, as is just, to impose a restraint, in this matter, also on printers, who now without restraint,--thinking, that is, that whatsoever they please is allowed them,--print, without the license of ecclesiastical superiors, the said books of sacred Scripture, and the notes and comments upon them of all persons indifferently, with the press ofttimes unnamed, often even fictitious, and what is more grievous still, without the author's name; and also keep for indiscriminate sale books of this kind printed elsewhere; (this Synod) ordains and decrees, that, henceforth, the sacred Scripture, and especially the said old and vulgate edition, be printed in the most correct manner possible; and that it shall not be lawful for any one to print, or cause to be printed, any books whatever, on sacred matters, without the name of the author; nor to sell them in future, or even to keep them, unless they shall have been first examined, and approved of, by the Ordinary; under pain of the anathema and fine imposed in a canon of the last Council of Lateran: and, if they be Regulars, besides this examination and approval, they shall be bound to obtain a license also from their own superiors, who shall have examined the books according to the form of their own statutes. As to those who lend, or circulate them in manuscript, without their having been first examined, and approved of, they shall be subjected to the same penalties as printers: and they who shall have them in their possession or shall read them, shall, unless they discover the authors, be themselves regarded as the authors. And the said approbation of books of this kind shall be given in writing; and for this end it shall appear authentically at the beginning of the book, whether the book be written, or printed; and all this, that is, both the approbation and the examination, shall be done gratis, that so what ought to be approved, may be approved, and what ought to be condemned, may be condemned.
Besides the above, wishing to repress that temerity, by which the words and sentences of sacred Scripture are turned and [Page 21] twisted to all sorts of profane uses, to wit, to things scurrilous, fabulous, vain, to flatteries, detractions, superstitions, impious and diabolical incantations, sorceries, and defamatory libels; (the Synod) commands and enjoins, for the doing away with this kind of irreverence and contempt, and that no one may hence forth dare in any way to apply the words of sacred Scripture to these and such like purposes; that all men of this description, profaners and violators of the word of God, be by the bishops restrained by the penalties of law, and others of their own appointment.
INDICTION OF THE NEXT SESSIONLikewise, this sacred and holy Synod resolves and decrees, that the next ensuing Session be held and celebrated on the Thursday after the next most sacred festival of Pentecost.

Answer 8

Around 340 BCE.

Our tradition is that from the time of the First Destruction, God's presence was no longer felt as clearly as before (see Deuteronomy 31:17-18). In addition, exile is not conducive to prophecy (Mechilta, parshat Bo). At that time, the last of the prophets realized that prophecy would soon cease; and that the dispersal of the Jewish people, plus the almost continuous tribulations from the First Destruction onwards, made it imperative to seal the canon of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The Sages of the time, including the last living prophets, convened a special synod for a couple of decades, which was called the Men of the Great Assembly (Mishna, Avot ch.1). This group, who functioned some 2360 years ago, composed the blessings and the basic prayers of the siddur (prayerbook) and the early portions of the Passover Haggadah, made many of the Rabbinical decrees, and (most importantly) sealed the canon of the Tanakh. It was they, for example, who set the twelve Minor Prophets as (halakhically) a single book, and who set the books of the Tanakh in their traditional order (see Talmud, Bava Batra 14b). It was the Men of the Great Assembly whom Esther had to approach when she felt that the Divinely inspired Scroll of Esther should be included in the canon (see Talmud, Megilla 7a).
Since the sealing of the Tanakh, no Jewish sage has ever claimed prophecy.

Answer 9

Until the early years of the Common Era, Judaism regarded the Torah and the Book of Isaiah as sacred, but the status of other books was uncertain. The selection of books to form part of the Jewish canon is believed to have occurred at the Council of Jamnia about 96 CE.

Answer 10

Catholic AnswerThe Bible was defined at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D., and by Pope Damascus I about the same time. There was not an infallible ruling on it until the Council of Trent 1,200 years later; but there is usually not an infallible ruling on something until there is a heresy that denies a truth of the faith that needs to be reaffirmed. In this case, the heresy did not arise until the sixteenth century when Martin Luther, for the first time in Christian history questioned the canon of Scripture. He removed the Deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament and from the New Testament. Other protestant "reformers" disagreed with him and put the deuterocanonical New Testament books back in, and actually returned the Old Testament deuterocanonical books to their Bibles, although they put them in a separate appendix.

It was Protestantism that removed these "deuterocanonical" books from the Bible, many centuries later. And contrary to the myth, the early Church did indeed accept these books as Scripture.

The seven disputed books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach), and Baruch. Catholic Bibles also include an additional six chapters (107 verses) in Esther and three chapters (174 verses) in Daniel.

According to major Protestant scholars and historians, in the first four centuries Church leaders (e.g. St. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian, St. Irenaeus) generally recognized these seven books as canonical and scriptural, following the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament, following the Council of Rome (382), and general consensus, finalized the New Testament canon while also including the deuterocanon, in lists that were identical to that of the Council of Trent (1545-1563).

There's a scholarly consensus that this canon was pretty much accepted from the fourth century to the sixteenth, and indeed, the earliest Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament: the Codes Sinaiticus (fourth century) and Codex Alexandrinus ©. 450) include the (unseparated) deuterocanonical books. The Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran did not contain Esther, but did contain Tobit.

According to Douglas and Geisler, Jamnia (first century Jewish council) was not an authoritative council, but simply a gathering of scholars, and similar events occurred afterward. In fact, at Jamnia the canonicity of books such as Ester, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon was also disputed. Since both Protestants and Catholics accept these books today, this shows that Jamnia did not "settle" anything. The Jews were still arguing about the canonicity of the books mentioned earlier and also Proverbs into the early second century.

And St. Jerome's sometimes critical views on these books are not a clear-cut as Protestants often make them out to be. In his Apology Against Rufinus (402) for example, he wrote:When I repeat what the Jews say against the story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us (Apology Against Rufinus, book II, 33)

Significantly, St. Jerome included the deuterocanonical books in the Vulgate, his Latin translation of the Bible, (And he defended the inspiration of Judith in a preface to it.) All in all, there is no clear evidence that St. Jerome rejected these seven books, and much to suggest that he accepted them as inspired Scripture, as the Catholic Church does today. But St. Jerome (like any Church father) does not have the final authority in the Church. He's not infallible. The historical evidence, all things considered, strongly supports the Catholic belief that these books are inspired and thus indeed part of Holy Scripture

from The One-Minute Apologist by Dave Armstrong; Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2007