How do Protestants even know the correct books are in the New Testament?

[Prodigal1984]

If the Catholic Church ( and Orthodox) as the ancient Church were not true and had gone astray, how to Protestants even know the correct books are in the Bible? How do they know something like the Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Protoevangelium of James, Apocalypse of Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, 1 Clement etc aren’t scripture when many in the ancient Church thought they were? And how can they know Revelation, Hebrews, 2 Peter, Jude etc.are when many denied they were scripture?
I often ask Protestants, if they can deny everything else the Church says, why even stop there? Why is the Bible correct in their eyes? I own collections of the New Testament Apocrypha translated by M.R. James and J.K. Elliot and the Apostolic Fathers by Holmes and theres plenty of writings that could be viewed as inspired if noone definitively said they weren’t part of the Canon.
Many Protestants have this view, that the Bible fell out of the sky. In fact this is false. Many early Christians ( including Church Fathers whose writings attest to it) went to their graves thinking certain books were scripture that aren’t in the Bible today. And I’m sure the Councils who did proclaim the Canon were somewhat tense when it came to accepting and rejecting books. So in theory why not go make their own canon? It isn’t that far fetched really when they can deny other aspects of the Faith that are so binding.
Disclaimer: This isn’t regarding the Old Testament and the deuterocanonical books whom Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox have differing views and accepted books. That actually can be argued more on terms of ancient Judaism and views among different sects and can lead to meaningless back and forth when even Church Fathers weren’t unanimous on it. I’m more interested in how the Protestants know the New Testament is correct.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Many Protestants don’t think about it. Actually, in my experience, most Protestants don’t think about it. They either don’t think much about Christian history, or their interest only goes back as far as Martin Luther and John Calvin (sometimes Zwingli), with even much interest in early Church Fathers really being whatever Luther and Calvin touched on in their writings. (Edit: There are are some other pre-Protestant movements that sometimes get touched on, but there’s still a noticeable drop-off in interest for anything pre-Luther.)

Other Protestants would either argue that:

1. God worked infallibly in the Church to give the canon, making the canon infallible.
2. The canon isn’t infallible, so we can’t know that the books are right. We just think that they are.

Both have some pretty obvious flaws, though.

 

[ReaderT]

I have personally brought Protestants to this problem. Their answers are usually something like:

• “Well, if this was the moment that God chose to define the Bible, He would make sure they got it right” (Which means they should accept the Apocrypha books too, but they don’t)
• “Well, we accept writings of Apostolic origin” (which means they should also accept the Liturgy of St. James in the Orthodox Church, or the Liturgy of St. Mark in the Coptic Church since these were written by Apostles, but they don’t)

My experience, anyhow.

 

[adf417]

IMO it is the single biggest “elephant in the room” every time a protestant tries to tell me how Catholicism is wrong. :man_shrugging:t3:

Peace!!!

 

[commenter]

Protestant apologists in recent years starting to address the NT canon more than they used to.

1. Some argue we know the Canon’s reliability because the books meet CRITERIA (written by an apostle, very old, “feels inspiring to read”, internal and external consistency, etc). The weakness is that all these are subjective and/or arguable, they may contradict each other, other books also meet some criteria, and how do we know these criteria are any good?
2. A few argue instead that" God inspired the canon at the same time He inspired the content."
   The weakness is that the Mormons, Gnostics, and others could use the same argument, so we have no idea our canon is better than theirs.

Every Protestant canon argument is driven by the need to show the Magisterium is unnecessary.

 

[po18guy]

Well, a certain rebellious Augustinian priest thought that the Church had erred even in the New Testament. He proposed to eliminate several books and letters. It was only through the almost super-human effort of his fawning lieutenant Philipp Melanchthon that the NewTestament remains inviolate.

In more modern times, it is a known saying in some circles that “We have a fallible collection of infallible books” That is a sand foundation for them, as they are never certain.

 

[twf]

When I challenged my Pentecostal wife (then girlfriend) on this topic, she wasn’t sure that the canon was closed… she thought that the living apostles and prophets of her Pentecostal movement could potentially discern new scripture. I think that’s an unusual view for Protestants, but it’s arguably more consistent. (Regardless she’s now at a more mainstream evangelical church that doesn’t have modern prophets in the same sense…).

 

[commenter]

Besides the classic hard core Protestant view of the canon, there’s a modified semi- Catholic version, supported by some Lutherans and Anglicans. They accept some role for the hierarchy, but balanced out by Tradition, the Creeds, and ECFs.

There’s also a movement - A New New Testament - that since 2013 has added some books to NT. This has some support from United Church of Christ and a very few mainline congregations, and, especially, on campuses.

 

[porthos11]

If the Catholic Church ( and Orthodox) as the ancient Church were not true and had gone astray, how to Protestants even know the correct books are in the Bible?

Simple. Tradition.

Whether they admit it or not, whether they like it or not, Protestants rely on divinely-revealed, non-Biblical Tradition to even recognize the inspired nature of the New Testament.

It does not matter what criteria they use to determine New Testament canonicity: apostolic origin, timeframe, “I like it”, “I feel a burning in my chest”, “King James said so”); any criteron they select to determine the canonical nature of the New Testament is extra-Biblical, and therefore a Tradition.

 

[ATraveller]

Whether they admit it or not, whether they like it or not, Protestants rely on divinely-revealed, non-Biblical Tradition to even recognize the inspired nature of the New Testament.

I find it hard to deny this, speaking as an Evangelical.

Pretty much the Bible canonicity established after the Reformation is accepted without question. Of course, the more scholarly-minded individuals will look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers. The Apocrypha wasn’t rejected because the theologians at the time just felt like it.

In Reformed/Calvinist denominations, there are doctrinal confessions that explicitly list the books that are Divinely inspired. That’s pretty much writing down tradition.

 

[commenter]

Reformed/Calvinist denominations, there are doctrinal confessions that explicitly list the books that are Divinely inspired. That’s pretty much writing down tradition.

The difficulty is always separating out Tradition (definitely true) from tradition (quite possibly true).