When Christians say “the Bible”, we are usually talking as though everyone means the same thing. In one sense, that is fair enough. Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and most other Christian traditions share the same twenty-seven books of the New Testament. We also share the central storyline of creation, Israel, Jesus, the church and the hope of God’s renewed creation.

But in another sense, “the Bible” is not quite as simple as many of us first assumed. A Protestant Bible has sixty-six books. A Catholic Bible has seventy-three. Eastern Orthodox Bibles usually include more Old Testament books than Catholic Bibles. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has an even wider canon, traditionally counted as eighty-one books.

That can sound alarming. It can also feed the popular myth that a group of powerful men simply sat around a table one day and decided which books they liked. The truth is more interesting and, I think, more reassuring. The Bible did not drop from heaven as a leather-bound book with maps, chapter numbers and a contents page. But neither was it invented by a committee. The canon developed as God’s people recognised, received, read and handed on the writings they believed carried divine authority.

What does “canon” mean?

The word “canon” comes from a word meaning rule, measure or standard. When Christians speak of the biblical canon, we mean the collection of writings received by the church as Scripture. That distinction matters. The church did not make a book inspired by voting for it. Rather, the church recognised certain writings as already authoritative.

That does not mean the process was instant or tidy. It was historical, pastoral and communal. Books were copied, circulated, read in worship, tested against the apostolic faith and received across the churches. Some books were accepted almost everywhere very early. Others took longer. A few were loved and useful but not finally received as Scripture.

The Old Testament question

The biggest difference between Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles is not the New Testament. It is the Old Testament.

Protestant Old Testaments follow the books of the Hebrew Bible, though arranged differently. The Hebrew Bible counts twenty-four books, while Protestants usually count thirty-nine, mostly because books such as Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are divided into two and the twelve minor prophets are counted separately.

Catholic Bibles include the books Protestants often call the Apocrypha and Catholics call the Deuterocanonical books. These include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees and additions to Esther and Daniel. These books were part of the wider Greek-speaking Jewish and Christian scriptural world and were included in the Latin Vulgate tradition. At the Council of Trent in 1546, the Catholic Church formally listed these books as canonical in response to Reformation-era disputes.

Eastern Orthodox churches tend to use the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures, as their Old Testament base. This usually means a wider Old Testament than both Protestant and Catholic Bibles. The exact list can vary between Orthodox traditions, but it commonly includes books such as 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the Prayer of Manasseh.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo tradition is broader again. Its own account says its canon contains forty-six Old Testament books and thirty-five New Testament books, for a total of eighty-one. It also preserves books such as Enoch and Jubilees, which are especially important for the history of Jewish thought before and around the time of Jesus.

So why the difference? It is not mainly because Christians disagree about Jesus. It is because early Christians inherited a complex Jewish scriptural world. Some communities were shaped more by the Hebrew textual tradition. Others were shaped more by the Greek Septuagint tradition. Over time, the Reformation pushed Protestants toward the Hebrew canon for the Old Testament, while Catholic and Orthodox traditions retained wider inherited collections.

The New Testament was recognised, not invented

The New Testament story is slightly different. Here the basic question was not, “Which Jewish Scriptures do we inherit?” but, “Which writings bear apostolic witness to Jesus Christ?”

The earliest Christians already had Scripture: what we call the Old Testament. But as the apostles preached Christ, wrote letters and told the story of Jesus, some Christian writings began to be read alongside Israel’s Scriptures. Paul’s letters were copied and exchanged. The four Gospels became the church’s stable witness to Jesus. Acts told the story of the risen Christ’s mission through the apostles. Other letters instructed churches in faith, holiness and perseverance.

This did not happen because one council suddenly created the New Testament. There is no good historical evidence that the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 chose the books of the Bible. Nicaea dealt primarily with the Arian controversy and the church’s confession of Christ, not the biblical canon. The claim that Constantine or Nicaea “made the Bible” is a modern myth, popularised in novels and internet arguments, not a serious reading of the evidence.

What we do find is a gradual pattern of recognition. By the late second century, the Muratorian Fragment shows a substantial core of New Testament books already being treated as authoritative, even though some boundaries were still being discussed. In the early fourth century, Eusebius distinguished between books widely acknowledged, books disputed by some and books rejected as spurious. That is important because it shows the church was not pretending there were no questions. It was discerning carefully.

In AD 367, Athanasius of Alexandria listed the twenty-seven New Testament books that match the New Testament used by most Christians today. His Festal Letter is often noted as the first surviving list that names exactly our twenty-seven New Testament books. Later regional councils, such as Hippo and Carthage, affirmed similar lists. But these councils were not choosing books from scratch. They were giving formal recognition to books already widely received and read in the churches.

What criteria were used?

The early church did not use one neat checklist in the way a modern accreditation board might. But several criteria appear again and again.

First, there was apostolic connection. A New Testament book needed a credible relationship to the apostles or their close circle. Paul’s letters mattered because Paul was an apostle. Mark was associated with Peter. Luke was associated with Paul and with careful investigation of eyewitness testimony. Hebrews was more complicated because its author is not named, but it was valued because of its theological depth and its long use in the church.

Second, there was consistency with the rule of faith. A book could not teach a different Jesus, a different gospel or a different God. This is one reason many later “gospels” were rejected. They may be historically interesting, but they do not carry the same apostolic shape as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Third, there was widespread and sustained use. Books read across many churches carried more weight than writings cherished only by one local group. This criterion did not mean popularity alone made something Scripture. It meant the churches were looking for catholicity in the older sense: broad, public and shared reception.

Fourth, there was antiquity. A writing claiming apostolic authority but appearing too late could not easily be received as apostolic. The church knew there was a difference between the apostolic witness and later devotional or theological literature.

Fifth, there was liturgical and pastoral fruitfulness. Scripture was not merely stored in libraries. It was read in worship, preached, prayed and used to form disciples. That is why some writings, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, could be valued by many Christians without being finally included in the canon.

Were there books with questions around them?

Yes. This is where Christians should be honest rather than defensive. Some biblical books had questions around authorship, date or reception.

In the New Testament, Hebrews is anonymous. The early church valued it deeply, but there were questions about whether Paul wrote it. Eusebius says some in the Roman church disputed Pauline authorship, even though the book was still known and used. Today, most scholars simply say the author of Hebrews is unknown.

Second Peter is probably the most discussed New Testament book when it comes to authorship. Eusebius says 1 Peter was widely acknowledged but that 2 Peter was disputed, while still being used by many with the other Scriptures. Modern scholars continue to debate its authorship because of differences in style, vocabulary and its relationship to Jude.

James, Jude, 2 John, 3 John and Revelation also had uneven reception in some places. Revelation, for example, was strongly received in some parts of the church and questioned in others, especially because of how some groups used it. Yet over time it was received as part of the New Testament canon.

There are also authorship and date questions within the Old Testament. Discussions about Moses and the Pentateuch, the composition of Isaiah, the date of Daniel and the shape of books such as Psalms and Proverbs are not new threats to faith. They remind us that many biblical books are both divine Scripture and historically situated writings. Some books came through prophets, apostles or named authors. Others may have come through collection, editing and faithful transmission within the worshipping community.

That can feel uncomfortable if we assume inspiration must mean a simple one-author, one-sitting model. But Scripture itself is often more textured than that. Proverbs contains collections. Psalms is a worship book gathered over time. Luke says he investigated sources carefully. The Bible is not less God’s word because God worked through real human processes.

Why were some books excluded?

Some books were excluded because they were too late. Others lacked apostolic connection. Some taught ideas out of step with the received faith. Others were useful but not Scripture.

This is where the “lost books of the Bible” language can be misleading. Some writings were not lost at all. The church knew about them and chose not to receive them as Scripture. The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, 1 Clement, the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas are all important for understanding early Christianity. But importance is not the same as canonicity.

The canon was not a list of every helpful Christian text. It was the foundational witness to God’s saving work in Israel and Jesus Christ.

What about chapters, verses and translations?

It is also worth remembering that chapters and verses came much later. They are useful for finding our way around, but they are not inspired divisions in the same way the text itself is Scripture. Sometimes verse numbers even interrupt the flow of thought. Good Bible reading means reading paragraphs, arguments and whole books, not only isolated verses.

Translations are another part of the story. The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, with some Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Most Christians read Scripture in translation, which is not a problem. The church has been translating Scripture from the beginning. But it does mean no single English translation perfectly captures every nuance. Reading more than one good translation can be helpful, especially when studying difficult passages.

Why this matters

For me, the history of the canon does not weaken trust in the Bible. It deepens it. The Bible did not emerge from a secret meeting where powerful men invented Christianity. It emerged through the life of God’s people as they recognised the writings that bore faithful witness to God’s acts, God’s character and God’s gospel.

There were debates. There were regional differences. There were books that took time to be fully received. But that is not a scandal. It is exactly what we might expect if God works through history rather than bypassing it.

Christians can be honest about the process without becoming cynical about the result. The canon was not arbitrary. It was not instant. It was not simplistic. It was received through worship, teaching, copying, testing and communal recognition.

The result is that when we open the Bible, we are not merely reading a private spiritual text. We are receiving the shared witness of Israel and the apostles, handed down through the church, centred on Jesus Christ and given to form us as God’s people.

That should make us careful readers. It should also make us grateful ones.

Sources and Further Reading

This article is written as a plain-language guide rather than an academic paper. The following sources shaped the discussion and are useful starting points for readers who want to go deeper.

  • Athanasius of Alexandria, Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter (AD 367), especially his list of the books received as Scripture.
  • Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, especially his discussion of acknowledged, disputed and rejected writings.
  • Council of Trent, Fourth Session, “Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures” (1546), for the formal Catholic listing of the deuterocanonical books.
  • Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, “Canonical Books,” for the broader Ethiopic canon and its traditional count of eighty-one books.
  • F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture.
  • Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance.
  • Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books.
  • Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority.
  • Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon.
  • Tyndale House, “Why do our Bibles contain these books and not others?”
  • Michael J. Kruger, “The NT Canon Was Not Decided at Nicea.”
  • Text & Canon Institute, “How 2 Peter Made It into the Bible.”