Description

Answers such questions as: How did the books of the Bible come to be recognized as Holy scripture? Who decided what the shape of the canon should be? What were the criteria that influenced these decisions?

Table of Contents

Part One: Introduction
Chapter

1. Holy Scripture

Part Two: Old Testament

2. The Law and the Prophets
3. The Greek Old Testament
4. The Old Testament Becomes A New Book
5. The Christian Canon of the Old Testament: A. In the East
6. The Christian Canon of the Old Testament: B. In the Latin West
7. Before and After the Reformation

Part Three: New Testament

8. Writings of the New Era
9. Marcion
10. Valentinus and His School
11. The Catholic Response
12. The Muratorian Fragment
13. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Novatian
14. Tertullian, Cyprian and Others
15. The Alexandrian Fathers
16. Eusebius of Caesarea
17. Athanasius and After
18. The West in the Fourth Century to Jerome
19. Augustine to the End of the Middle Ages
20. The New Testament Canon in the Age of Printing

Part Four: Conclusion

21. Criteria of Canonicity
22. A Canon Within the Canon?
23. Canon, Criticism and Interpretation

Appendix 1: The 'Secret' Gospel of Mark
Appendix 2: Primary Sense and Plenary Sense