What Is the Biblical Canon? Meaning, History, and Why It Matters

Definition

What does biblical canon mean?

When Christians speak about the biblical canon or the canon of Scripture, they mean the collection of writings recognized as belonging to Scripture. The term helps distinguish the books received as authoritative Scripture from other ancient religious writings, however historically useful those other writings may be.

That definition immediately raises two different historical questions. When were the biblical books written and authoritative? And when did Christians later describe the boundaries of that collection in surviving lists? Those questions are related, but they are not identical.

That distinction is central to Who Changed the Church? Don L. Wood argues that a later list can recognize books whose authority already existed. In his framework, recognition does not create inspiration any more than identifying an apostle creates an apostle.

The New Testament Evidence

The writings were functioning authoritatively before fourth-century canon lists.

The New Testament itself provides evidence that apostolic writings were being read, exchanged, commanded to be read publicly, and treated as authoritative during the apostolic period.

Paul instructed churches to circulate his letters. Peter referred to Paul's letters alongside 'the other Scriptures.' Whatever one concludes about the precise chronology of every New Testament book, those passages show that the recognition of authoritative Christian writings did not suddenly begin centuries later.

Authority Before the List

Did a canon list make a book Scripture?

A surviving list is valuable historical evidence because it tells us which writings a particular Christian writer or community recognized. But the existence of a later list does not by itself prove that the books on it possessed no authority beforehand.

This is where debates over the canon often talk past one another. One side may be discussing the date of a complete surviving twenty-seven-book list, while another is discussing when individual apostolic writings were already functioning as Scripture. Those are different historical claims.

The famous fourth-century evidence therefore matters without requiring the conclusion that the fourth century created the New Testament. Athanasius's Festal Letter of AD 367 is especially significant because its New Testament list corresponds to the twenty-seven books familiar today. It is evidence about explicit recognition of the collection, not evidence that those writings were composed in AD 367.

The Manuscript's Case

Who Changed the Church? pushes the canon question back into the apostolic generation.

Wood argues for a particularly early completion of the written apostolic deposit. His case combines passages about the faith being delivered, the sufficiency of revealed truth, the apostolic mission, the circulation of writings, and his chronology for the later New Testament books.

The manuscript states the distinction sharply: the writing of the books was finished before the later recognition of the list. That is a stronger chronological claim than simply observing that some New Testament writings were authoritative early, and the book develops the evidence behind it at much greater length.

Readers do not have to collapse every canon question into one date. The date a book was written, the date it was first received, the history of its circulation, disputes over particular books, and the date of surviving complete canon lists are separate pieces of evidence.

Why It Matters

The canon question is ultimately an authority question.

If Scripture became authoritative only because a later institution conferred authority upon it, the relationship between Scripture and that institution looks very different from a model in which the church recognizes writings that already possess apostolic authority.

Who Changed the Church? adopts the second model. Councils, bishops, early Christian writers, manuscripts, and canon lists remain historically important witnesses. But Wood does not allow those witnesses to become the source of the apostolic Word's authority.

That is why the canon is not a side issue in the book. Once the measuring rod is established, later developments in leadership, priesthood, tradition, miraculous gifts, and church authority can be compared against it.

Go Deeper

The hardest part of the canon story is not the definition.

The difficult questions begin when the chronology is reconstructed book by book. Which writings were already circulating? Which books were disputed in some places? What do early Christian writers quote? What exactly did later councils and lists accomplish?

Who Changed the Church? makes a much more specific claim about how early the apostolic written deposit was complete. That case depends on evidence that cannot be reduced to the familiar statement that 'the Bible was canonized in the fourth century.' The book lays out the chronology and then asks what that chronology does to later claims of authority.