Now who is the one promulgating Fake News?
The Syriac Peshitta (complete Bible translation in Syriac) was already circulating in the 2nd century, and the Muratori Canon (also from the 2nd century) had listed practically ever book which is found in Protestant bibles.
The
Muratorian Fragment (so-called because it represents only a portion of the actual second-century document discovered in 1740 by Lodovico Antonio Muratori), is the oldest extant listing of New Testament-era books revered by early Christians. It was written sometime between 155 and 200. Patristic scholars believe the unknown author originally wrote the list in Greek (since the Latin is very poor), but the oldest copy available is an eighth-century Latin manuscript.
Although the Muratorian Fragment is important in studying how the early Church developed the New Testament canon, it doesn’t give exactly the same list of books that was later adopted as
canonical at the councils of Hippo and Carthage. The Muratorian Fragment is just that: a fragment of a larger list of books which were considered canonical or quasi-canonical during the second century.
The Fragment itself provides us with a good though incomplete idea of this early canon. Virtually the entire New Testament canon as we know it is represented but not all of it: the Gospels of Luke and John (preceded by what seems to be an allusion to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark), Acts, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, Titus, 1 & 2 Timothy, Jude, two letters of John (since the fragment simply says “the two ascribed to John,” we don’t know which two of his three letters are meant), and Revelation.
The unknown author adds other non-canonical books to this lineup but makes clear these were not considered part of the canon: the so-called Pauline Epistles to the Laodiceans and to the Alexandrians (about which the Fragment’s author expresses his conviction that they were not authored by Paul), the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Shepherd of Hermas). The Fragment’s list is cut short abruptly with a final, enigmatic phrase which may indicate that the author had gone on to include still other non-inspired writings: “Those also who wrote the new book of psalms for Marcion, together with Basilides, the founder of the Asian Cataphrygians.”
As you can see, although the Muratorian Fragment lists most of the New Testament books, it’s missing a few (e.g. James, one of John’s epistles, most likely 3 John), and it also adds the book of Wisdom as canonical, which is very interesting from a Catholic perspective.
These facts demonstrate that, although the Fragment came close, it did not represent the actual canon of inspired Scripture. Further, there is no internal evidence in the document that it sought to represent any kind of official canon that was regarded by the Church as binding.
In the first four centuries of the Church many books, such as the seven letters of Ignatius, the Letter of Clement [the fourth pope] to the Corinthians, the Didache, and The Shepherd were revered by many Christians as inspired but were later shown to be non-inspired.
It was not until the Synod of Rome under Pope Damasus in A.D. 382, followed by the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, that the Catholic Church defined, albeit non-infallibly, which books made it into the New Testament and which didn’t. Probably the council fathers studied the (complete) Muratorian Fragment and other documents, including, of course, the books in question themselves, but it was not until these Councils that the Church officially settled the issue.
The plain fact of the matter is that the canon of the Bible was not settled in the first years of the Church. It was settled only after repeated (and perhaps heated) discussions, and the final listing was determined by the pope and Catholic bishops.
This is an inescapable fact, no matter how many people wish to escape from it.
Prior to that the Hebrew Tanakh (our Protestant OT) was in the hands of Jewish Christians and Christ, and the Gospels and epistles were circulating in all the Christians churches. And that is also why Peter had read all of Paul's epistles and classified them as "Scripture" in his second epistle. That means that over half of the NT or more was already in the hands of Christians.
In the first four centuries of the Church many books, such as the seven letters of Ignatius, the Letter of Clement [the fourth pope] to the Corinthians, the Didache, and The Shepherd were revered by many Christians as inspired but were later shown to be non-inspired.
The myth which the Catholic Church likes to circulate is that they gave the world the Bible. But they conveniently forget that Catholic scholar Jerome -- who translated the Latin Vulgate from Hebrew and Greek in the 4th century -- was very clear that the apocryphal books should not be included in the OT. His recommendation was overridden by the pope of that time, so now the Catholic bibles have a corrupted OT.
Wrong again. Although Jerome was once suspicious of the Apocrypha, he later viewed them as Scripture. For example, in Jerome's letter to
Eustochium he quotes Sirach 13:2;
[24] elsewhere Jerome also refers to
Baruch, the
Story of Susannah and Wisdom as scripture.
[25][26][27]
There is no historical evidence of a 66 book canon existing anywhere on the planet until the 14th century. It's another one of those man made traditions.
