by jimwalton » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:17 pm
There were several gatherings of Christian leaders, not to vote on which books to accept, but to affirm which books were obviously inspired and easily recognized as such. The deliberations of the church during this time involved recognizing the books given by God to His people rather than deciding what books to include in the Bible. The difference is a subtle but important one. The books of the New Testament are not Scripture because the church said they were, but are Scripture because from the time of their composition they bore the mark of divine authority. The New Testament, and in fact the Bible as a whole, is thus a list of authoritative writings rather than an authoritative list of writings.
There is no dispute (nor are we aware that there was ever a dispute) about which books belonged in the Old Testament as inspired. Every list is the same, and there is no contention about it recorded anywhere in history.
The criteria for the books of the New Testament is that they were written by one of the apostles, someone who saw Jesus after the resurrection, or by someone who had information directly from the apostles. Other criteria were truthfulness and agreement with previously canonized writings. That was the criteria by which they could affirm that the author had first- or second-hand, reliable and trustworthy information. In other words, they insisted that it came "from the horse's mouth," true, and concordant with what had already been affirmed as true.