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THE BIBLE CANON : M. M. NINAN<br />
Paul was also considered an Apostle and was accepted as such by the people and<br />
also the other Apostles. Peter actually equated Paul's letters with "Scripture" (2 Pe<br />
3:15-16) and people received his words as the Word of God (1 Th 2:13; 1 Co<br />
14:37) Paul's letters were circulated among the churches as a means of instruction-<br />
Co 4:16<br />
Paul quoted the gospel of Luke as Scripture - 1 Ti 5:18; cf. Lk 10:7<br />
Thus all professing Christians accept the 27 books of the New Testament as<br />
canonical.<br />
But there are other books supposedly written by the apostles which are not<br />
accepted.<br />
One essential condition with regard to canonical books is that they are written within<br />
the life time of the period of living witnesses. To be safe they are to be written<br />
within the Apostolic period and the living apostles were able to verify the doctrinal<br />
purity. This date ends with 100 AD with the death of Apostle John.<br />
THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA<br />
These were not written by the Apsotles. Most of these were written in the name of<br />
some well known Apostle or authority by the Gnostics and other Christian cults of the<br />
period. It is therefore classed as “False Writings”<br />
There are a large number of such writings amounting to over 280. The more wellknown<br />
of these are:<br />
a. The Gospel of Thomas<br />
b. The Gospel of Peter<br />
c. The Gospel of Hebrews<br />
d. The Protevangelium of James<br />
Except as a document illustrating the period their value is limited. Most of these are<br />
Gnostic writings containing exaggerated and mythical religious folklore, while there<br />
are a few written by well meaning believers. Both these tendencies are present even<br />
today and such writings still appear.<br />
THE NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA<br />
These are books written after the time of Christ which were accepted at first by some<br />
in the church and appeared at times in collections and translations of Scripture.<br />
However they never enjoyed acceptance by the Church in general.<br />
A complete index of the NT Apocrypha can be found in the following site and you can<br />
read them there.<br />
http://www.comparative-religion.com/christianity/apocrypha/new-testamentapocrypha/<br />
These can be classified into four groups:<br />
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