The Berean Expositor
Volume 21 - Page 171 of 202
Index | Zoom
James quotes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Kings, Chronicles, Proverbs, Isaiah and Job.
Peter quotes Exodus, Leviticus, Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah.
The Revelation quotes Genesis, Numbers, Proverbs, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea,
Joel, Zephaniah and Zechariah.
The manner of quotation, and the fact some quotations agree with the LXX, some with
the Hebrew, and some with neither, must be a matter for separate study. We give the
above list simply as further evidence in the matter of the O.T. canon.
#6.
The canon of the N.T.
pp. 46 - 51
The twenty-seven books that compose the New Testament, written by Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter and Jude, have the uninterrupted testimony of
antiquity to their genuineness, and there is absolutely no reason for supposing imposition
or fraud. Michaelis says that in the case of the writings of the N.T. the testimony is much
stronger than in the case of any other ancient writings, such as Xenophon, Caesar, Tacitus
and the like, for the books of the N.T. were addressed to large societies in widely distant
parts of the world, in whose presence they were often read, and who acknowledged them
as being the autographs of the writers themselves.
We must remember that, unlike other, writings that have come down to us from
antiquity, those of the N.T. were read over three quarters of the known world, and that an
unbroken succession of writers, from the very age of the apostles to our own time, make
continual reference to, or quotation from, the N.T. Scriptures, and further that these
writers include not only friends but foes.
One quotation from the writings of Peter makes it very evident that the early church
was quite prepared to receive as Scripture the writings of the apostles and prophets, for he
speaks of "all the epistles of Paul" (II Pet. 3: 16) and speaks of them as on an equality
with "the other Scriptures", which, when we know the mind of the Jew on the matter, is a
very great admission. Somewhat similar is the association by Peter of O.T. and N.T.
writings as of equal authority when he uses the exhortation:--
"That ye be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and
of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour" (II Pet. 3: 2).
As Paul had used the term "old covenant" in II Cor. 3: 14, it was quite natural that
the writings of the apostles should be known as the "new covenant" (Eusebius H. E. 6:
25), or "The Gospels and the Prophets" (Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius, Justyn Martyr
and others), just as Christ spoke of "The Law and the Prophets". Before the close of the
second century translations of the N.T. began to be made, and this effectively prevented