3 Myths About How the Bible Was Put Together That Need to Go Away

Part 3: What Really Happened When the Church Decided Which Books Made the Cut

I’ve been teaching a three-week class on biblical reliability, and we hit the third week last night. The first two weeks covered manuscript evidence and archaeology. Folks asked good questions. I shared what I learned here on Substack, and you seemed to appreciate it.

But week three was different. Week three is where things get spicy. Because week three is where we talk about how the Bible was actually put together. How did we end up with these 27 books in the New Testament and not others? Who decided? When did they decide? And was it actually decided at all, or did someone just announce one day that this was the Bible now and everyone had to deal with it?

The moment I put up the slide about canon formation, I could see the wheels turning. What about The Da Vinci Code? Was it Constantine? Did a bunch of bishops vote on which books to include?

Here’s the thing about how the Bible was assembled. Almost everything you’ve heard about it is probably wrong, and it’s not because you’re gullible…