Hebrew Canon Research Paper

Today we have the Bible, but before we had the Bible there was the Hebrew Canon. The history of how the Hebrew Canon came to be, how it was developed overtime, and how the canonization of the Old Testament was different from the New testament are all important topics to explore when trying to understand and study today’s Bible. The Canon was a collection of sacred writings that were from God, written by man (Hebrew Bible). The Canon, also known as the Hebrew Bible, contains a total of 24 books and is divided into three main parts: The Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Pentateuch was made up of five books known as the books of Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (Hebrew Bible). The five
The Old Testament was Canonized based on Christ’s references of the Old Testament scriptures in the New Testament. They were able to determine the authenticity and authority of the Old Testament books based on how in (Matthew 21:42) Jesus refers back to those books as scripture (Litke). This actually happens many times in the Bible where Jesus or his disciples would refer back to scripture from the Old Testament in their New Testament writings. That solely could confirm that these books were real and God breathed, but there was also a lot studies done by historians to prove the authenticity of these scriptures. The New Testament was Canonized based off of the apostles and disciples that claimed their writings. Within the New Testament books the apostles and disciples of those days claimed their writings and many of their writings start by telling us that they were the ones who indeed wrote these books (Litke). For example in (Colossians 1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother.” ) (New International Version, Col 1). Paul opens up his writing stating his name in his letter so that the church would know who was writing to them. The New Testament books were also proven authentic and authoritative based on the connection they had with the Old Testament scriptures, in 2 Peter 1:1-2 it says, (“Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate your to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.”) (2 Peter 1.1-2). Again we see how the apostle refers back to the Old Testament. The fact that there were apostles and disciples that walked with Jesus and who were eyewitnesses to everything that happened during those days proved these books to be real. They wrote down their experiences and the words