Why Apochyphal/Gnostic writings are not part of Canon

[Pegg]

There is a reason why not all 'scripture' made it into the Bible Canon. Some have tried to include apocryphal and gnostic scriptures into the bible canon, but those books have never been viewed as part of the inspired record. So why do some books get included and some rejected as being inspired?

The meaning of 'canon' (Greek ka·non&#8242 applies to a a tool for measuring in the scriptures. When applied to the books of the bible, it literally means the writings which can be used as a guide for what is true and inspired and worthy to be used as a straightedge in determining the right faith, doctrine, and conduct.

Any book claiming to be inspired of God should demonstrate this by what the book contains.
1. The document must deal with Jehovah’s affairs in the earth. It should turn people to his worship and stimulating deep respect for his name and for his work and purposes in the earth.

2. It must give evidence of inspiration by holy spirit and demonstrate the holy attitudes of that spirit.

3. There must be no appeal to superstition or creature worship but, rather, an appeal to love and service of God.

4. There would have to be nothing in any of the individual writings that would conflict with the internal harmony of the whole, but, rather, each book must, by its unity with the others, support the one authorship, that of Jehovah God.

5. The writings should give evidence of accuracy (ie historical/geographic/timing/prophecy) down to the smallest details



For the reasons stated above, the apochryphal/gnostic writings were always excluded as part of the canon for the reason that they do not prove to be in harmony with this process. They often show contradictory teachings and ideas. For example, the Gospel of Judas paints him as a loyal and faithful disciple who was following through on Jesus request to turn him over to the chief priests. This obviously disagrees with the Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke regarding Judas as the 'Betrayer'.

If anyone would like to discuss why they believe the apocryphal or gnostic writings should be included, please state your reasons and show how they adhere to the 5 points above. And if anyone would like to discuss the process of how the cannon was chosen in the first place, feel free.

 

[Desert Snake]

Some churches do include the Apocryphal writings.

 

[Windwalker]

Did you know that the book of Revelation was hotly contested and despised by many bishops of the church who voted against its inclusion? Did you know there are more books in the Catholic and Eastern Cannon than there is in the Western Protestant one? From Wiki: "Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon." Did you also know that the Song of Solomon was considered pornographic and also hotly contested as to it inclusion?

So, who decides? Who's right? The ones you inherited, conveniently?

Also, who made up this list of five criteria?

 

[Skwim]

FWIW, a little background on the assembly of the Bible.

"According to Professor John Crossan of Biblical Studies at DePaul University the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (274-337 CE), who was the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, needed a single canon to be agreed upon by the Christian leaders to help him unify the remains of the Roman Empire. Until this time the various Christian leaders could not decide which books would be considered "holy" and thus "the word of God" and which ones would be excluded and not considered the word of God.

Emperor Constantine, . . used what motivates many to action - MONEY! He offered the various Church leaders money to agree upon a single canon that would be used by all Christians as the word of God. The Church leaders gathered together at the Council of Nicaea and voted the "word of God" into existence. . . . the final version of the Christian Bible was not voted on at the Council of Nicaea, per se. The Church leaders didn't finish editing the "holy" scriptures until the Council of Trent when the Catholic Church pronounced the Canon closed. However, it seems the real approving editor of the Bible was not God but Constantine!"
source
​

 

[Pegg]

Some churches do include the Apocryphal writings.

yes they do, but what basis are they using for stating the book is inspired?

that is the question.

 

[Bob Dixon]

yes they do, but what basis are they using for stating the book is inspired?

that is the question.

... but what basis are YOU using?

For example, the Gospel of Thomas. You wouldn't include that in the canon, would you? Why not?

 

[Pegg]

Did you know that the book of Revelation was hotly contested and despised by many bishops of the church who voted against its inclusion?

understandably so, revelation's opening chapters highlight the sins of several congregations... i think its understandable that people dont like to have their faults highlighted and would prefer to keep such talk hidden. But the bible is not a book written by men to men... its written by God to men and God does not shy away from highlighting our errors.

Did you know there are more books in the Catholic and Eastern Cannon than there is in the Western Protestant one? From Wiki: "Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon."

thats probably because they include apocryphal literature.... the dead sea scrolls contain several books which are not a part of the hebrew canon, christians are no different in this regard. And by the time Christianity took hold in Ethiopia, (4th century) there was plenty of apocryphal literature available

So, who decides? Who's right? The ones you inherited, conveniently?

Also, who made up this list of five criteria?

the content decides.

If the content is in harmony with God and his expressed will and purpose, if it upholds his righteousness and his morals, if it promotes his Messiahs kingdom and plan for mankind, if it is in harmony with the writings of the hebrew scriptures, and if the person who wrote it is a prophet or servant of God, then it could be considered to be inspired


if it doesnt live up to this, then it cannot be considered as from God. God does not contradict himself, he does not promote wrongdoing or attitudes which are fleshly and improper, he is not afraid to condemn wrongdoing and he does not tell lies.

 

[Pegg]

... but what basis are YOU using?

For example, the Gospel of Thomas. You wouldn't include that in the canon, would you? Why not?

the things written in this 'gospel' are out of harmony with the writings of the apostles for starters....

For example, it ascribes a number of strange utterances to Jesus, such as saying that he would transform Mary into a male to make it possible for her to enter into the Kingdom of heaven. this is completely illogical for someone who is going to enter heaven for Jesus said that in heaven, there is neither male nor female.... so why would a woman need to be changed into a male to enter heaven if heaven has no males?

what you read in apocryphal texts are the philosophical reasonings of men who are obviously weighed down with deeply entrenched cultural ideas...in this case, males are superior to females.

But God does not view things this way. Only sinful men do. This writing obviously is written to appease the sensibilities of men in those days.

 

[Shermana]

Any book claiming to be inspired of God should demonstrate this by what the book contains.
1. The document must deal with Jehovah’s affairs in the earth. It should turn people to his worship and stimulating deep respect for his name and for his work and purposes in the earth.

According to what you think is the right way of turning people to his worship?

2. It must give evidence of inspiration by holy spirit and demonstrate the holy attitudes of that spirit.

And who, pray tell, is the one who determines this evidence? Who decides what is the right form of religion expressed? How do you know its the right form?

3. There must be no appeal to superstition or creature worship but, rather, an appeal to love and service of God.

No appeal to worship of Creatures? There goes Genesis, when Lot worships the Angels. Define "Superstition". Would that include looking at a bronze image of a Snake to cure snakebite? Would that include drinking bitter water to determine if a woman committed adultery?

And I guess that definitely would give cause for inclusion Acts of Peter for sure, which is all about service and love of God. And Shepherd of Hermas. And Enoch.

4. There would have to be nothing in any of the individual writings that would conflict with the internal harmony of the whole, but, rather, each book must, by its unity with the others, support the one authorship, that of Jehovah God.

So again, Acts of Peter has no real conflict, neither does Gospel of Philip, neither does Shepherd of Hermas, neither does Pistis Sophia, neither does Enoch, and neither does the Clementine Literature (Except for Paul of course, of which it clashes, and Paul clashes with virtually the entire OT and Gospels no matter how much you try to defend the anti-Mosaic-Law Theology). However, there goes the Pastoral Epistles and Ephesians as well as the legitimate, uncontested corpus of Paul which is easily the "odd one out" of the so-called "prophets".

However, the conflict in Galatians and Acts, as I've brought up many times, which goes unresolved even among Conservative Christians to this day (even FF Bruce unsuccessfully tried saying it's referring to two separate events) would thus indicate something fishy. But we can just attribute that to later interpolations.

5. The writings should give evidence of accuracy (ie historical/geographic/timing/prophecy) down to the smallest details

How about the writings of which there is no way to determine historical authenticity for sure?

Where does Acts of Peter show any historical inaccuracy?

Where does Shepherd of Hermas?

Where does the Clementine Literature? Because it goes against Paul?

For the reasons stated above, the apochryphal/gnostic writings were always excluded as part of the canon for the reason that they do not prove to be in harmony with this process

.

Apparently it wasn't cause for exclusion by the entire early church like Iraneus, Clement regarding works like Acts of Peter and Shepherd of Hermas and Enoch. So be careful flinging that word "Always". Did you mean to say "After the late-early church"?

They often show contradictory teachings and ideas. For example, the Gospel of Judas paints him as a loyal and faithful disciple who was following through on Jesus request to turn him over to the chief priests. This obviously disagrees with the Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke regarding Judas as the 'Betrayer'.

Can you name some examples in Acts of Peter, Shepherd of Hermas, and Enoch and Gospel of Philip that show such contradictory ideas or were you gonna just use Gospel of Judas as the chief representative?

 

[Ouroboros]

Arbitrary and human subjective rules, to decide what is God's word and not. Humans deciding what human words come from God... hmm...

How about God telling me what God wants me to know and what he wants to tell me directly, instead of him telling someone else to tell someone else about what to pick from someone else. God is within you! Not without you.

 

[gnostic]

But the bible is not a book written by men to men... its written by God to men and God does not shy away from highlighting our errors.

So Paul didn't write all those letters? God did them!

So no human wrote the gospels?

If that's true then why did god write 4 different versions instead of just ONE? Why did god included two completely different genealogies of Jesus and 2 different birth stories instead of one genealogy and one birth story.

Why would god write Samuel's and Kings' and then write the Chronicles?

Why did God write that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, then say later in the same chapter that it rained for 150 days? Is god inconsistent?

If god was the real author then why is he not consistent?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Any book claiming to be inspired of God should demonstrate this by what the book contains.
1. The document must deal with Jehovah’s affairs in the earth. It should turn people to his worship and stimulating deep respect for his name and for his work and purposes in the earth.

2. It must give evidence of inspiration by holy spirit and demonstrate the holy attitudes of that spirit.

3. There must be no appeal to superstition or creature worship but, rather, an appeal to love and service of God.

4. There would have to be nothing in any of the individual writings that would conflict with the internal harmony of the whole, but, rather, each book must, by its unity with the others, support the one authorship, that of Jehovah God.

5. The writings should give evidence of accuracy (ie historical/geographic/timing/prophecy) down to the smallest details

So your position is that all the books of the canonical Bible meet all five of these tests?

How does the zombie invasion of Jerusalem described in Matthew 27:50-53 meet test #5?

Heck, how does Revelation meet any of those tests?

 

[Pegg]

According to what you think is the right way of turning people to his worship?
And who, pray tell, is the one who determines this evidence? Who decides what is the right form of religion expressed? How do you know its the right form?

The scriptures which are canonical explain all this. The writings of the prophets explain what God requires and how to worship God acceptably....the evidence is in the scriptures which are held sacred for that very reason.

No appeal to worship of Creatures? There goes Genesis, when Lot worships the Angels. Define "Superstition". Would that include looking at a bronze image of a Snake to cure snakebite? Would that include drinking bitter water to determine if a woman committed adultery?

The book of Geneis does not promote the worship of Angels. And Lot did not worship them... the act of bowing down was a customary thing to do as a sign of respect....people in Japan still bow their heads as a sign of respect.

The account about the bronze snake had nothing to do with superstition...it was a test of obedience at the time. If it was a promotion of superstitious practice, why did it not become a practice among Isrealites? And the bitter water was during the time when the judges ruled the isrealites, Jehovah gave them ways to make accurate judgements on important matters...this was one of them.

And I guess that definitely would give cause for inclusion Acts of Peter for sure, which is all about service and love of God. And Shepherd of Hermas. And Enoch.

the acts of Peter is most certainly not a recount of Peter's activities...a battle of miracles? Peter brings a dead fish to life to prove Gods power? Peter uses a dog to hunt down a false teacher? Restores a broken statue of Caesar? He calls down evil upon an enemy?... you seriously think this is in harmony with Christ and his teachings about loving your enemies and not putting God to the test????

The book of Enoch is not a christian writing, it was not accepted by the Jews as an inspired writing for its not in their cannon. So who decided it is an inspired book and why?
The Shephard was not written by an apostle....Herman may have been a disciple but that doesnt make his writing 'inspired'. If I write an essay about Jesus, is it automatically inspired because of its subject matter? No of course not.
And the early church had known at an early date that the sheparhard was not considered 'inspired' as is evidenced by the Muratorian Fragment which lists it as a book that can be read but is not grouped with the inspired canon:
Muratorian fragment
But Hermas wrote the Shepherd (74) very recently, [7c] in our times, in the city of Rome, (75) while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the [episcopal] chair (76) of the church of the city of Rome. [7d] (77) And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but (78) it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among (79) the Prophets, whose number is complete, [8] or among (80) the Apostles, for it is after [their] time.

Gospel of Philip, neither
neither does Pistis Sophia,
and neither does the Clementine Literature

the gospel of Philip puts the position of Mary Magdalene as the most intimate of Jesus’ companions and states that he “used to kiss her [often] on her [mouth].” Do you really think that Jesus was chasing after women and actually doing this??? I dont.

Pistis Sophia is a 3rd/4th century text.... it wasnt written by the apostles therefore it was not written by anyone with authority to teach Christs teachings. Its a gnostic text which describes different levels of the spirit world...this is not a biblical teaching, its not found in the hebrew scriptures or the greek scriptures. There are no levels to the spirit world were souls live...that is completely pagan in origin.
It explains the fates of souls after death and the punishments which await them.... The bible clearly says the soul dies and the dead are conscious of nothing at all...so how can an unconscious dead person experience anything???

If you are talking about Clement of Alexandria, well here is what he says about 'souls':
“All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked . . . Punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire, and not dying, it is impossible for them to have [an end] put to their misery.”—Clement of Alexandria, a writer of the second and third centuries C.E.
Does the bible say the soul is immortal? No. So he is not an inspired writer. The Prophet Ezekiel says 'the soul that is sinning will die'
These two teachings cannot both be correct.

 

[Pegg]

So Paul didn't write all those letters? God did them!

So no human wrote the gospels?

2Peter 1:21 For prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit

2 Samuel 23:2 The spirit of Jehovah it was that spoke by me, And his word was upon my tongue.

Acts 28:25 So, because they were at disagreement with one another, they began to depart, while Paul made this one comment: “The holy spirit aptly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to YOUR forefathers,


Men are used to write Gods thoughts by means of holy spirit. That is why the bible is a book written by God....it was God who motivated men to write his message. God is the author, men are simply the penmen.

 

[Shermana]

The scriptures which are canonical explain all this. The writings of the prophets explain what God requires and how to worship God acceptably....the evidence is in the scriptures which are held sacred for that very reason.

A bit circular, and many of the texts in question do not break the mold whatsoever. Paul's however....

The book of Geneis does not promote the worship of Angels. And Lot did not worship them... the act of bowing down was a customary thing to do as a sign of respect....people in Japan still bow their heads as a sign of respect.

So the word "Worship" only means "Worship" in some places, and "reverence" in other places even though its the same word. I can agree with that. I wish Trinitarians would however, since they think Jesus was "worshiped" just like God is. And since none of the Apocryphal texts in question violate this, I don't see the problem.

The account about the bronze snake had nothing to do with superstition...it was a test of obedience at the time. If it was a promotion of superstitious practice, why did it not become a practice among Isrealites? And the bitter water was during the time when the judges ruled the isrealites, Jehovah gave them ways to make accurate judgements on important matters...this was one of them.

Well in that case there's absolutely nothing superstitious about any of the Apocrypha or Pseudipigrapha in question.

the acts of Peter is most certainly not a recount of Peter's activities...a battle of miracles? Peter brings a dead fish to life to prove Gods power? Peter uses a dog to hunt down a false teacher? Restores a broken statue of Caesar? He calls down evil upon an enemy?... you seriously think this is in harmony with Christ and his teachings about loving your enemies and not putting God to the test????

How is it not? How is the Book of Acts in Harmony but the Acts of Peter isn't? How about the Epistles of Paul? You think wishing castration on people is in line with Christ's teaching about loving your enemies?

The book of Enoch is not a christian writing, it was not accepted by the Jews as an inspired writing for its not in their cannon. So who decided it is an inspired book and why?

Jude perhaps. The RABBINICAL Jews did not accept it. The Qumran Community apparently did.

The Shephard was not written by an apostle....Herman may have been a disciple but that doesnt make his writing 'inspired'. If I write an essay about Jesus, is it automatically inspired because of its subject matter? No of course not.

Titus and Timothy and Ephesians were (most likely) not written by Apostles. Neither was Hebrews. How do we know that the Shepherd wasn't written by an apostle? How do we know its not Inspired? Your argument is that "Just because it could be by an apostle doesn't mean its inspired", okay, so why isn't it Inspired then? Why are Pau's writings inspired? Why is the author of Hebrews and Titus and Timothy inspired? How do we know the dating is correct?

And the early church had known at an early date that the sheparhard was not considered 'inspired' as is evidenced by the Muratorian Fragment which lists it as a book that can be read but is not grouped with the inspired canon:
Muratorian fragment

Again, as I explained to you last time, The Muratorian Fragment does not say it was not considered Inspired. It merely says it is not part of the "prophets". That doesn't say its not inspired. I assume you don't mind that Revelation and other books were considered part of the heavily disputed Antilegomona even by the 4th century?

But Hermas wrote the Shepherd (74) very recently, [7c] in our times, in the city of Rome, (75) while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the [episcopal] chair (76) of the church of the city of Rome. [7d] (77) And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but (78) it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among (79) the Prophets, whose number is complete, [8] or among (80) the Apostles, for it is after [their] time.

the gospel of Philip puts the position of Mary Magdalene as the most intimate of Jesus’ companions and states that he “used to kiss her [often] on her [mouth].” Do you really think that Jesus was chasing after women and actually doing this??? I dont.

You mean do I really think that Jesus may have had a Romantic relationship with Mary? Why not? What you think is irrelevant. It doesn't go against what the scripture says. Maybe against what Paul says about not touching a woman.

Pistis Sophia is a 3rd/4th century text.... it wasnt written by the apostles therefore it was not written by anyone with authority to teach Christs teachings. Its a gnostic text which describes different levels of the spirit world...this is not a biblical teaching, its not found in the hebrew scriptures or the greek scriptures. There are no levels to the spirit world were souls live...that is completely pagan in origin.

1. We don't know when Pistis Sophia was written. Some say its a 2nd century text. If you read the scholarship on the matter, it's all guesses. No one knows, and it's all based on which group they GUESS used it.

2. It's not really "Gnostic", I am planning on making a whole thread on it.

3. The idea of different levels of the Spirit World coincides perfectly with the ideas of the levels of Heaven. This is not completely pagan. You don't get to decide what's completely pagan. The idea of multiple layers of Heaven is not in any way determined to be a non-Jewish concept.

It explains the fates of souls after death and the punishments which await them.... The bible clearly says the soul dies and the dead are conscious of nothing at all...so how can an unconscious dead person experience anything???

This goes back to your arguments that there is no afterlife, of which we need an entire thread to discuss. And it also goes into why Ecclesiastes is considered scripture in the first place, and what it means. It was far from accepted at first and the reasons used to put it in were notoriously flimsy. Why is Ecclesiastes necessarily canonical? To even begin to break this down would require an entire debate on the JW view of the Afterlife.

If you are talking about Clement of Alexandria, well here is what he says about 'souls':

No, the Clementine Literature is not the Epistles of Clement. It's Jewish-Christian writings from the 2nd-3rd century. And there's no reason to discount a writing's authenticity by its date if it was written by prophets. Even Paul said there would be prophets.

“All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked . . . Punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire, and not dying, it is impossible for them to have [an end] put to their misery.”—Clement of Alexandria, a writer of the second and third centuries C.E.
Does the bible say the soul is immortal? No. So he is not an inspired writer. The Prophet Ezekiel says 'the soul that is sinning will die'
These two teachings cannot both be correct.[

Again, this all plays into your view that there is no afterlife for spirits. This view is very recent, it's not at all what the scripture teaches, and involves such defenses for things like not consulting the Spirits of the dead as them not being actual spirits of the dead and things like that.

Meanwhile we have the Epistle of Peter which says Jesus went to hell to teach to the souls of the Flood generation. Apparently that one didn't get noticed by you?

So if your argument is that any book which talks about the afterlife and souls must be wrong, you'll need an entire debate on the matter, and I believe I've decisively proved wrong the JW idea of the afterlife on thread after thread. So to simply assume that the Bible says there's no afterlife is to make a lot more presumptions than you've already made.

 

[gnostic]

Men are used to write Gods thoughts by means of holy spirit. That is why the bible is a book written by God....it was God who motivated men to write his message. God is the author, men are simply the penmen.

:scoff:

Inspiration DOESN'T and NEVER equal to authorship.

It is one of the reasons why I don't think of religions very highly, when some Christians or Muslims ignorantly claim God supposedly wrote somethings (like scriptures). I simply can take such claims seriously.

I wrote a song about a friend of mine. She was an inspiration to our friendship; she was my muse at that point in time. But the only person who can claim authorship to the song, it would be me.

Homer wrote two great masterpieces: The Iliad and The Odyssey. Do you think Achilles wrote The Iliad or Odysseus wrote The Odyssey? Or do you think one of the Olympian deities wrote these fine books?

Similarly Michelangelo sculpted David and many others. Is the sculptor, Michelangelo or David?

Michelangelo had even painted God with Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapter. Who do you think the painter is? God? Adam? I don't think so, even though his painting was inspired by the Book of Genesis.

So it goes the same with everyone who wrote, paint or sculpt anything. There are others who may have inspire us, but the ones who hold the pen, quill, paintbrush or chisel.

 

[Reverend Richard]

There is a reason why not all 'scripture' made it into the Bible Canon. Some have tried to include apocryphal and gnostic scriptures into the bible canon, but those books have never been viewed as part of the inspired record. So why do some books get included and some rejected as being inspired?

The victors get to write (or re-write) history. As another poster has pointed out, a certain political/religious group within the early church influenced which scripture was cannonized, and which scripture was rejected. And in fact, if you read the history of the early church, and the history of how the Bible came to be, there were certain individuals in the early church called heresiologists whose job is was to track down heretical scripture and suppress it, burn it, destroy it. In particular, the Gnostic Gospels somehow managed to survive in spite of an attempt to enforce orthodoxy by essentially what amounted to book-burning.

I think enough has already been discussed on this forum in other threads, especially with regard to who actually wrote the synoptic Gospels, as well as who actually wrote many of the books attributed to St. Paul, who never even met Jesus (at least not in the flesh).

Do I believe in divine inspiration? Yes. But even under the influence of divine inspiration, man himself is too weak to refrain from embellishment or taking "divine license" when it comes down to writing scripture, under a condition that could only be described as a "divine possession" of his mind.

Finally, if God actually chose men to do his bidding in terms of writing scripture, his technique failed miserably. Here we are several millenia later, still fighting, even dying, over who got it right, who got it wrong, who is going to hell and who is going to heaven. If God wanted to ensure our souls were saved, surely God could come up with a better plan than that!

 

[Jainarayan]

Any book claiming to be inspired of God should demonstrate this by what the book contains.
1. The document must deal with Jehovah’s affairs in the earth. It should turn people to his worship and stimulating deep respect for his name and for his work and purposes in the earth.

2. It must give evidence of inspiration by holy spirit and demonstrate the holy attitudes of that spirit.

3. There must be no appeal to superstition or creature worship but, rather, an appeal to love and service of God.

4. There would have to be nothing in any of the individual writings that would conflict with the internal harmony of the whole, but, rather, each book must, by its unity with the others, support the one authorship, that of Jehovah God.

5. The writings should give evidence of accuracy (ie historical/geographic/timing/prophecy) down to the smallest details

This is the true meaning of the phrase "begging the question" (it does not mean "raising a question")... a logical fallacy of circular reasoning: the bible says it is correct and true, so it is. No writing can prove itself.

Item # 5 is especially suspect.

 

[Ouroboros]

The deal is, someone wrote the apocrypha and gnostic books. Someone used these books as holy books for their faith and religion. Therefore, they are holy just like any other Bible book. They were inspired by divine, and inspired people in their faith, just as much and can't be rejected any more than the books in the canon. If the canon is divinely inspired, then the other books are. If the other books are not, then the canon is neither. They all stand and fall on the same premise that they were relished and used in worship for people's faith.

 

[Windwalker]

They all stand and fall on the same premise that they were relished and used in worship for people's faith.

That really is how they originally came to be sifted through. Mark, Luke and whatnot were in the pile with the rest of popular texts that did pass a much later committe approval. There were far more that were popular and used by Christian churches that the central committee in Rome then had committee meetings over to make administrative designs over in their discussion groups. That is how the Bible came to be.

But the real point is that if a certain branch of Christianity today is to presume their's is the "real" canon, then they have to look at all the early churches prior to the later canon and state they were all deceived or something. Yet it is from those same churches the Orthodox Christian religion itself was born. The only thing that made the later cannon "approved" was that it agreed with some later, basic theological views that also had gone the process of committee approvals.