Picture a smoke filled room with a powerful, secret gathering of men about to pick which books get included in the Bible, and which are forever burned and suppressed.
That's the impression often given of how the New Testament (and the Old) came to be. The Da Vinci Code popularized the idea that one man, or a group, just arbitrarily chose which books to include.
The story goes that a massive amount of gospels, books and writings were all competing for being included as scripture. Each part of the Roman Empire had their own set of diverse "true" teachings about Jesus. But then a powerful gathering of bishops met at Nicaea and came up with our New Testament, meanwhile wiping out all the other books and gospels.
But nothing could be farther from the truth. Greg Gilbet explains in his short, excellent book, Why Trust the Bible?
First, the early church was not swimming in a pool of gospels with differing views.
"In fact, the only Christian writings that have been confidently dated to the first century are the very ones that finally made up the New Testament."
Gilbert, Greg. Why Trust the Bible? (9Marks) (p. 64).
The next oldest set of books, Gilbert explains, are from decades later in the mid-first century. These are the writings we call the apostolic fathers and they all overwhelmingly agree in doctrine with the New Testament books. And none of them claimed to be scripture, or were ever taken that way.
In fact, it was 100 or more years after the New Testament books were written that documents began to emerge that differed significantly from their teaching. And they reference the earlier books, which marks them as challengers to what was already long accepted by the church.
But by the end of the first century the church had already widely recognized most of the New Testaments books we have today as scripture, including most of Paul's writings.
"...the evidence shows that, although the church debated the authority of a handful of New Testament books into the fourth century, Christians widely recognized the vast majority of what we know as our New Testament as authoritative no later than the end of the second century" (Gilbert. p. 65).
That's over 150 years before Constantine or the Council of Nicaea. And in AD 180 Ireanaeus of Lyons, a church father, references our "four Gospels."
The early church and those who came after them did not see themselves as "choosing" the books of scripture, but rather spoke of receiving them from those who came before them, like precious items passed down.
Did the early Christians also have solid criteria for being confident about certain books that had been passed down vs. others? The answer is yes! Four criteria in particular guided them (Gilbert, p. 68):
- Apostolicity - did an apostle or their close companion write it?
- Antiquity - written during the time of the apostles (first century)
- Orthodoxy - it had to agree with the standard of truth received
- Universality - did Christians everywhere use this book and value it?
The Muratorian Canon from the second century records the criteria above that the church had used. All the books in our New Testament pass these tests.
So, The Shepherd of Hermes failed the test because it was "recent" not ancient and thus not apostolic either.
The Gospel of Peter failed because it claimed to teach "secret things that Jesus taught" which contradicted what everyone knew Jesus publicly taught. And it's quite wierd (a talking cross comes out of the tomb behind a giant Jesus), not just a little off! And it was used only by a few isolated parts of the ancient world, not universally.
The Gospel of Thomas failed the antiquity test, not being written until the second century, long after the real Thomas had died. And it also didn't pass the orthodoxy test, teaching things everyone knew were strange and contrary to Jesus' well known teachings (Gilbert, p. 74). If you thought the Gospel of Peter was strange, here is a purported "saying of Jesus" from the Gospel of Thomas (114):
“Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
This is in stark contrast to the New Testament where Jesus affirmed the value of women far beyond the culture of the day. And Paul taught they have equal standing in Christ before God (Galatians 3:28).