What is Scripture, what is not?

Q. There are many books that people claim to be “scripture”. How do we know what is scripture and what is not, which books are “good” and which are “bad?”

A. The Bible isn’t really one book, but a collection of books written over 1500 years. The process of deciding on what is scripture and what isn’t is called “canonization” which means to measure according to a strict standard. This didn’t happen all at one time. What Christians call the “old” testament is called the Tanak. It consists of the Torah (first 5 books of Moses), the Neviim (prophets) and the Ketuvim (writings). The first letters of Torah, Neviim and Ketivim is TNK and that is where Tanak comes from. This was the canon of scripture at the time of Yeshua and accepted by Him. So, there is no problem with those books so you can be assured they are from the L-rd. This was a process also, and there were other books in this canon, but were trimmed down by Ezra around 450 BCE.

The process of canonizing the “new” testament took about 400 years. Paul’s letters were compiled first along with the 4 gospels and the other letters added last. Acts and Revelation were the last 2 books to be accepted. Part of the criteria to measure what books met the standard or not was that a book had to be attributed to an Apostle or someone closely associated with one. The book itself must have an inner consistency with know scripture and not violate its context and be in line with doctrinal foundations already known and accepted. These books have been translated into different languages and that’s where things get a little hazy.

Meanings and intent can be lost when words are translated from one language to another. Every translation from the Hebrew and Greek has problems so it is best to study these books using lexicons, knowing the history and the culture of the time. I can give hundreds of examples of translation problems from any Bible, so the problem isn’t so much the books contained in our Bibles, but how they are translated. It is best to have these language tools available and to know how to work in them.

Q. There is a book that has been quoted by some that the pope right after the current pope will be evil. What is the name of this book?

A. This book is called “The prophecies of St. Malachy” and it supposedly lists the papal history from pope #167 onward and things associated with each pope. I wouldn’t give it much thought and it can be interpreted many ways, like the prophecies of Nostradamus. Most experts on this think it is a Jesuit forgery of the 1600’s. I don’t waste any time on these things, I have a more sure word of prophecy by true prophets of G-d to master before I am concerned about papal history. I wouldn’t waste any time on it.