In my limited training, I have gleaned the following information that I trust is factual or held as a fact by those who taught me it:
At some point before the birth of Christ the Old Testament was considered complete or closed by the Jewish pharisaic or rabbinic groups. With a few very small exceptions, the vast majority of these books are of the Hebrew tongue. This Old Testament was not the Septuagint because that body of translation includes the apocrypha. The apocrypha are spurious writings that I understand are not of Hebraic tongue or Jewish authorship. Additionally, the apocryphal books were rejected by the Protestant Reformers because they are not considered divinely inspired. The pseudepigraphica are almost not worth mention because even the catholic church rejected these as inspired works.
As I have been instructed and studied, the New Testament was written and circulated as gospels and epistles (letters) among the saints during mostly the first century, culminating with the Revelation (or Apocalypse) of Jesus Christ to John completed sometime near the end of the first century. The exact time of writing is debated and I choose not to dwell upon it.
Now, can we say that we (the church, believers, saints) had the closed canon of God-breathed scripture at the moment John put down the quill on the Isle of Patmos? Or must we wait until the 325 AD council of Nicaea, requested by Constantine? At this council, allegedly 300 plus bishops gathered to determine which books were inspired and should be included as canon and to reject those writings not found to stand up to the test of canonicity. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the test included the requirement of apostolic authority. Authorship needed to be apostolic or of one who had directly witnessed Jesus’ ministry and been chosen by Jesus. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to how Luke fulfilled this requirement. He was a direct witness and definitely a follower, a disciple of Jesus, perhaps that is enough. Paul qualifies because he was an “apostle born out of due time” and he witnessed Jesus on the road to Damascus as well as some “boot camp training” in the desert of Arabia that we cannot speak about in great detail.
Does anyone know if the original NT autographs were already non-extant by the time of the council meeting of 325? My guess is that they were already lost by this time, although, the church possessed faithful copies of the inerrant originals.
Now, enlighten me if I err. Is not the closed canon of scripture the collection of 66 books that we call the Bible. This collection does not include the apocrypha, much less the pseudepigraphica. When did this specific collection receive the distinction of closed canon?
Or should my point of view be that the Lord new far in advance what works would be considered His once-delivered message to the saints and He provided divine guidance to the body of men who had been ordained to answer the question of which writings transferred this predeterminate council of God to the hearts of men?
