How the Old Testament Was Canonized

Was God's Word put together by man apart from God?

Some people think that the Roman Catholic Church had a major hand in putting together the Bible. Or was it inspired by God? God breathed to His servants, and it was God's servant's responsibility to canonize, in other words, compile the Bible. Let's turn to 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 and 17. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Do we really believe in that?

In other words, was He inspired and God breathed and assembled by those that God chose to do that? In other words, who did God inspire to put together the Bible, which is the word we would say, canonize the Bible? Should we believe what secular historians think about who canonized the Bible? Or should we take the scriptures and the indications from the scriptures and conclude from there who God gave the responsibility to put together the Bible? Some people say, oh well, the Bible, as we have it, does not contain all the books because they say, well, there's some lost books. Do you think God would have allowed that?

Are there other hidden books? Now, the word for hidden is apocrypha, of which there are 14 books in the Catholic version of the Bible called the apocrypha, and that word means hidden. Do you think those should be part of God's word? In other words, which books should be in the Bible? Do we have the full content of the writings in our lab, in our Bible? Or should there be others which are hidden and lost?

So did God give that responsibility to His servants?

And when did that occur?

And so today, brethren, I want to cover the first sermon of a series of two to show some of the steps, specifically today, about the canonization of the Old Testament. The second sermon at a later time will be the canonization of the New Testament. And so I want to go through which books should be part of the Old Testament, when and by whom were they canonized, according to the various comments and things that we draw from the Scripture. Now, as you can imagine, this is a very large subject, and it is one that has caused a lot of confusion.

So today we want to try, even though it's complex, we try and simplify to some degree. But let me tell you the conclusion right up front. We will see that God has used His people to do the canonization, not pagans. And we can have confidence that we have all of God's inspired Word. And when we were reading in 2 Timothy 3, verse 17, a while ago, we read right at the end of verse 17, the purpose is that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. God has made sure that we have His full Word so that we are thoroughly equipped to serve Him according to His will. Still in 2 Timothy, but now going back to chapter 2, verse 14 and 15, we remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord, not to strive about the words to no prophet to the ruin of the eras. But be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We, God's servants and God's people, have the responsibility, have always had the responsibility to rightly divide the word of truth. And you and I have the responsibility to study it and apply it in our lives through various means. Bible study, meditation, as we are in the sermonette, that is very important. As we read a little bit further down, still in 2 Timothy 2, and now let's read in verse 23, John 17, 17. But what we do have is a being, an adversary, Satan, who's got a master degree, in breaking trust and lying and deceiving.

You know, if you read in Genesis chapter 3, right at the beginning, God told Adam and Eve, don't eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because you shall die. And what did Satan tell Eve? Oh, he wants to die?

What Satan was calling God, he was calling God a liar. He was breaking trust because Adam and Eve trusted God.

And he was just saying, hey, don't believe God, he's a liar. You won't die. There is a hidden agenda out there. He's a trust breaker. Or put it another way, he breaks our faith.

So let's look at what Christ said after his resurrection. And we're going to look in Luke chapter 24, Luke chapter 24, verses 44 and 45. Luke 24, verse 44 and 45.

Then he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.

And he opened it, understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures. And so Christ clearly defines the Scriptures in three major divisions or sections. The law, the prophets, and the Psalms.

Now let's look at that very briefly. The law consists of five books. We call the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It consists of five books. That's the law. Then the prophets consists of six books. They're basically divided into three sections, former, major, and minor. There are two former prophet books. One is Joshua and Judges because they were one book, Joshua and Judges. And the other one was the Kingdoms, which is 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings.

They were one book. And so those were the two former prophets. As I mentioned, there are six books in the prophets. So those were two. Then we've got the major prophets, which are three books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. And then we have the minor prophets, which is one book, consisting of twelve from Isaiah to Malachi.

And so the prophets are those six books, former, major, and minor. And then the next one is the Psalms, which is also referred to as the Writings. Well, the Writings, or the Psalms, consist of eleven books.

The reason why it is referred to as the Psalms is because the first one is actually the Book of Psalms. But there are three former poetic ones of those eleven. Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. Then there are five, which is called the Megalot, which is Song of the Psalms, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. And there are the three latter Restoration books, which are Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, which was one book, and Chronicles, which was first and second Chronicles.

So the Writings, we have eleven books. So, recapping. Christ backed up these divisions, or sections, of the Old Testament. And as it says here, he made them understand the Scriptures. This is referred to as the Scriptures. And these three sections is the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. These are the three divisions of the Old Testament. And three is a form of completeness. And consists of seven parts. What do you mean seven parts? The Law. Then we have the Prophets, which is former, major, minor, and poetic.

And then we have the Writings, which is the poetic, and the megalot, and the resurrection. I think I must state that the Prophets are former, major, and minor. That's what I should have said. And then the Writings is the poetic, megalot, and resurrection. So a total of seven sections, or seven parts. And seven means complete. So we have three divisions of the Old Testament in seven parts, which says it's a complete perfection.

The total is 22 books of the Old Testament. We, in latter time, have split, like, for instance, the kingdom books into 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. We have split, for instance, Joshua and Judges. And we have split, for instance, others like Ezra and Amiah. And 1 and 2 Chronicles.

But the content is the same. If you divide them into different books, or whatever, the content is the same. But the way God set it up is that there are 22 books, and no new content has been added to those 22 books.

So as I went through, and I enumerated the law, the prophets, and the writings, or psalms, and I mentioned the first one, the law is Genesis, and I went through the writings starting from the poetic psalms, prophets, and Job, the megalot, and then the latter, restoration books, which is Daniel, Ezra, and Amiah, and Chronicles. So in that layout, the Book of Chronicles is the last book, as it appears in the Jewish Bible or in the Tanakh.

Now, Christ backed up that order, and we can see that in Matthew 23. Matthew 23, verses 34 through 35. Matthew 23, and I know, brethren, this is very technical, but it really is part of us being instructed that we do have the correct Bible. So Matthew 23, verses 34 and 35.

We, therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, persecute from city to city, that you may come, all that on you may come, all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. The implication, yeah, brethren, is that the first to be killed in the slushya was Abel, and that comes out of the first book, Genesis.

And the last to be killed was Zechariah, which is described in the last book of this section of 22 books, which is in 2 Chronicles 24, verses 19 through 22. So we can see that Christ recognizes that sequence. In other words, lists that as the complete Scriptures. Also, if we read in Matthew 26, verse 54, Matthew 26, verse 54, he says, How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?

So this is Christ speaking, backing up the Scriptures. And then he says in verse 56, But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. And so we can see that Christ here knew the Jews had the proper Scriptures. So at the time of Christ, the Jews had the proper Scriptures, the Old Testament. Now, as we get to later in the book of Acts, let's just turn to Acts 17.

In Acts 17, at the beginning of Acts 17, we talk about Yahweh. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolias and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And then Paul has his custom was, he went into them for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the Scriptures. So where was he reading these Scriptures in a synagogue? Those were the Scriptures that they had in the synagogue. And basically, all synagogues had the same set of Scriptures. Look at verse 11, for instance. It says again, then where some fair-minded, they were, they were more fair-minded, or these were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica.

It's talking about those in Berea. In that they received the Word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures. They need to find out whether these things were so. There was no confusion about which Scriptures. There was a set of Scriptures. So they all had the same Old Testament content. Now, in 2 Timothy 3, verse 15, a little while ago, we start reading from verse 16. But in 2 Timothy 3, verse 15, we read about Timothy, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures. Now, the word Holy is the Greek word, e heriurios, which means sacred.

Sacred meant when it refers to the high place in the temple at Jerusalem. So, in other words, these were the temple Scriptures. And so, these temple Scriptures were replicated throughout the Jewish world through the synagogues, and these were the Scriptures, which is the same one they had at the temple. So, all synagogues throughout the Roman world had exact replicas of the sacred temple Scriptures. In other words, they had the official canon. Now, the 22 major Old Testament books is supported by ancient recorded view.

For instance, Josephus, in book 1, section 8, of his famous work Antiquities of the Jews, recognized only 22 books. In 391 of the Christ of the current era, Jerome said the following, quote, as then there are 22 elementary characters by means of which we write in Hebrew. Here was the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. So, we reckon 22 books by which, as by the alphabet of the doctrine of God, a righteous man is instructed.

And so, the early Greeks, the Syrians, the Armenians, and even the Catholic, admit to 22 major books in the Old Testament. And to this day, Jewish translations like the Tanakh contain 22 Old Testament books. So, the books have never been lost and have not been added. Now, why 22? Numbers have meanings to God. 22 is the complete Hebrew alphabet, which is the basis of the written word.

And we see a number of alphabetic acrostics throughout the Bible. What do you mean by an acrostic? It means that the first letter of the sentence begins with the first letter of the alphabet. And the next sentence begins with the second letter of the alphabet of the Greek, of the Hebrew alphabet. And so, if we were doing it in English, for instance, the first sentence would start with an A, the second sentence would start with a B, the third sentence would start with a C, the fourth sentence would start with a D, and so on, all the way to the end, the last one.

Now, I want you to look at a very interesting psalm, the largest psalm in the Bible. And you probably know which one I'm talking about. Psalm 119. So let's turn to Psalm 119.

Now, your Bible may have, at the beginning, for instance, of verse 1, on Psalm 119, it may have a little symbol that looks like an N, and then it says, a Leth, which is the letter A in Hebrew. And your Bible may have, then, just before verse 9, a little symbol that looks like a closing square brackets, which says, Beth, which is the letter B in Hebrew. And if you look, and if you glance through that psalm all the way till the end, you will see that every eight verses, they start with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And so verses 1 through 8, all of them start with letter A. Verse 9 through 16, all of them start with letter B. All verses 17 through 24, all start with letter C, which is Gimmel, and so on, till verse 176. And if you turn one or two pages down to verse 176, you can see that a little bit before, on verse 169, before 169, it's got the letter tau, which is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And so what do we have? We have 22 letters in an alphabet, and we have eight verses per each one of those letters. So eight times 22 makes 176.

You see, numbers mean something to God. I think there will be a lot more that we'll learn in the future about that. Look at another book, the Book of Lamentations. Let's look at the Book of Lamentations, another interesting book. But what I'm really mentioning to you is that the Bible hasn't been put together accidentally. God is in control. Look in the Book of Lamentations. If you look at the Book of Lamentations, Chapter 1, how many verses has it got?

22.

So it's a full acrostic. Each verse starts with A and then B and then C, obviously in Hebrew. Look at Chapter 2. How many verses has it got?

22. Another full acrostic.

Now look at Chapter 3. How many verses has it got? You will see it's got 66 verses, which is three acrostics, 22, 22, 22. And then if you look at Chapter 4, also it's got 22 verses, and Chapter 5, it's got 22 verses.

And so what do we have?

Seven acrostics. Chapter 1, Chapter 2, makes 2. The chapter in the middle, 3, has got three acrostics. So it makes 5. And then the last two chapters make 7.

Seven acrostics. Seven means complete.

Now you all know Proverbs, and a lot of you ladies have probably looked at the virtuous woman, the virtuous wife. Turn to Proverbs 31, verse 10. Proverbs 31, verse 10. Have you noticed that from verse 10 to verse 31 is exactly how many verses? 22. Each verse starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, A, B, C, etc.

Now, not every verse in every case, for instance in Psalm 9 and 10, some verses have more than one sentence. And so if you look at Psalms 9 and 10, which is showing the chaotic conditions of this world, there is an acrostic, but it's all mixed up. It's not in sequence, because it shows the chaotic conditions of the world. Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 are complete acrostics, which shows God's will to completely and permanently redeem His people. Genesis, the first chapter, there are 22 things mentioned, day, night, male, female, etc. 22 things mentioned. And from Adam to Israel is 22 generations. Now, take it a little bit further. We have 22 books in the Old Testament, and we have 27 in the New Testament. Now, what is 27? It's 3 to the power of 3. 3 cubed, right? 3 times 3 is 9, 9 times 3 is 27. Now, 27 books in the New Testament plus 22 books in the Old Testament comes up to how many?

49. 49 is 7 times 7, which is complete, absolute completion of the Bible. Granted, today's Bible, today, we have 66 books, but it's the same 49 books just split, you know, like, for instance, Ezra and Amiah were split into two books. But it's the same content. And so we do have the complete Bible. Now, some people say, what about the Septuagint and the Apocrypha and the Diltro-canonical books, you know, it was the second other lost books, which basically were written primarily in the time between that Old Testament period and the New Testament, those few hundred years there in the middle.

There's a man called Origen Adamantios, which was a Greek scholar, call it Hellenistic scholar, and ascetic. Ascetic means a form of Gnosticism. And he was a person lived in the third century in the area of Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria? Do you remember when I gave the sermon about the Alexandrian text, around about that time frame? Interesting, isn't it? A Gnostic out there already manipulating things. And as researched by F.F. Bruce in the book, The Canon of Scripture, page 73, he says that Origen Adamantios compiled what they called exapla, which means a Greek six-fold, which was an edition of the Old Testament that had side by side six vertical columns, having the Hebrew text, the Hebrew text transcribed into Greek letters, the Achilles Greek version, the Samankas Greek version, the Septuagint, and the Ofodosian Greek version. He was the one that in the end actually came up with the current Septuagint version. The current Septuagint version has been, let's call it, doctored by this individual.

And the Septuagint version includes the apocryphal books. So this was long after Christ. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Septuagint was divided into four sections, law, history, poetry, and prophets. And that's what influenced the current layout of your Bible. But that Septuagint added the extra apocrypha books, which the Catholic Bible has.

The apocrypha books teach some things that are true, yes. But they also teach many things that are not true. And they are not. A number of the things that are stated are not historically accurate. Some examples of things that are in apocrypha books without going into any detail. We find examples of praying for the dead. We find examples of petitioning saints in heaven for their prayers. We found worshipping of angels. And, quote-unquote, almsgiving, which is penance, a practice done by the Catholics for atoning our sins. So, as we can see, the apocrypha books were not part of the 22 holy scriptures, the temple scriptures. Now, brethren, we took quite a bit of time, and I know it's a bit technical, but it was just to give you some background that it is a complex subject, and there is a lot of different opinions about it. But we have proved that we have the correct Old Testament, and that we have the correct books of the Old Testament. And so, let's now analyze, very briefly, how they were compiled, that is canonized.

And this is where we start with Romans 3, verses 1 and 2. In Romans 3, verses 1 and 2, we read, what advantage, then, has the Jew? Or what is the prophet of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly, because to them, we're committed the oracles of God.

The Jews, specifically the priests, were given custody over the holy writings, the Old Testament. And they also, as we know, they were given the responsibility to blow the trumpets and proclaim when the month started, so that we have God's correct Holy Days.

We read in Exodus 17 that God spoke to Moses, verse 14, and told him to write down the law, and to preserve it as a memorial for his people. And at the end, in the Autonomy 28, 58, it says, this was written in a book, and they had to read it every feast. And so, the law was put together right there by Moses.

And that was what we call the first canonization of the Old Testament. In the Autonomy 31, specifically verse 9, the Autonomy 31 verse 9, the Autonomy 31 verse 9. So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all elders of Israel.

God is in control, and he, God, through Moses, made sure that this first stage of the inspired writings, which is the law, was brought on for us. A lot of the canonizations that happened after that, and in fact we have another four, so a total of five canonizations of the Old Testament, were done particularly when temple services were being revitalized. So the first canonization was done by Moses. The second one was done by Kings David and Solomon. Scriptures that give us a clue to that is 1 Chronicles 25, 1 Chronicles 25 verse 1.

And there we read, Moreover, David and the captains of the army separated for the service, some of the sons of Asaph, of Ermine, of Jadathun, who should prophesy with harps, string instruments and cymbals, and the number of the skilled men performing their service was. And then he goes through them.

But you see, David was setting up the way of worshipping, inspired by God. He was a man, as we heard in the sermon, a man after God's heart, and he organized various things, including the temple services and various liturgies. We know that he had different priests according to different orders and things like that.

Another example is in Ecclesiastes 12, verse 8 and 9. And vanity of vanity says the preacher, all his vanity. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs. And we know that many proverbs were proverbs of Solomon. They were added. And so at the time of David and Solomon, with the new temple, with all the elaborate services that came into that new temple, it was necessary to add to those two existing books.

And that was the second canonization. Third, we see King Ezechiah and Isaiah the prophet. During the time of Ezechiah and Isaiah, there was an attack of Israel by Assyria. And that was very prominent. And in this emergency, God inspired that certain books be part of the canon for proper guidance in religious matters if all religious services were suspended by an Assyrian invasion. Let's look at Ezechiah, 2 Kings 18, verse 5.

2 Kings 18, verse 5. Talking about Ezechiah, he trusted in the Lord of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. Which kings were before Ezechiah? There was none like him before the Lord, nor no one like him before him. Which is, in a way, God is ranking him as more righteous of all kings, and maybe even more than King David.

And then we read in 2 Chronicles chapter 31, 2 Chronicles chapter 31, verse 2. And then a little further. 2 Chronicles chapter 31, verse 2. He says, He studied the law carefully, and it was fit to canonize the Old Testament until that time. We can see, for instance, in Psalm 120 through 134, we see 15 pilgrimage psalms. Ezechiah had 10 of those psalms, the songs of decrees. 4 were by King David and 1 by Solomon.

And Proverbs 25 verse 1. Just turn to Proverbs 25 verse 1. These are the Proverbs of Psalm, which the man of Ezechiah, king of Judah, copied. Ezechiah added sections to the Old Testament, and from Proverbs 25 through to Proverbs 31, those were added by Ezechiah. And he signed all the books with the initials HZK, at the end of all Old Testament books, except the megalot. He bound them firmly and confirmed, authenticated as Holy Scripture.

The fourth canonization was by King Josiah and Jeremiah the prophet. That was at the time that Judah was threatened by Babylon. So the previous one, when they were threatened, these were lights by Assyria, now by Babylon. In 2 Chronicles chapter 34, 2 Chronicles chapter 34 verse 14. And now when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses. So the book of the law was found by Hilkiah the high priest. And then in verse 24, he said, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses.

So the book of the law was found by Hilkiah the high priest. And then in verse 27, So there will be peace until Josiah would die. Now, a parallel prophet to Josiah, to King Josiah, was Jeremiah. And Jeremiah chapter, we read about Jeremiah in 2 Chronicles 35 verse 25. And Jeremiah also lamented for Josiah, and to this day, all the singing men and the singing women speak to Josiah and their lamentations.

They made a custom in Israel, and indeed, they are written in the laments. That's the book of lamentations. And so we have Jeremiah had work in doing the canonization during Josiah's life and wrote lamentations and dedicated it to Josiah. And so in that fourth canonization, we have lamentations, Jeremiah, and other minor prophets that were canonized. Then later, God used Daniel to preserve God's word during the Babylonian captivity. You see, Daniel was placed in charge, from what we can see, of a library, or was at least one of the top librarians in the Babylonian palace.

In Daniel chapter 1, Daniel chapter 1 verse 4, Daniel chapter 1 verse 4, and he's talking about Daniel and says, So that implies that he was one of the top librarians in the Babylonian palace. And we read in Daniel chapter 9 verse 2 that then he had access to the Scriptures. And because there in Daniel 9 verse 2 he says, In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood the books, you know, specifically Jeremiah.

The number of years specified by the Word of God through Jeremiah. So that already had been canonized by Jeremiah. That was part of the Scripture, and Daniel understood that. That he would accomplish seven years in the desolation of Jerusalem.

And so we can see that that canonization had been done. That proves that was being done. Then after that, there was a time when the Jews went back to Israel, and that was the time of Ezra and Jeremiah. And that is the first and final canonization of the Old Testament. In Ezra chapter 7, Ezra chapter 7, verse 8 through 10.

And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. On the first day of the first month, he began his journey from Babylon, and on the first day of the first month, he came to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God upon him. For Ezra had prepared in his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. So Ezra went back to Jerusalem after the seven years of captivity in Babylon, and after the temple was rebuilt, temple was rebuilt about 457 B.C. So Ezra came there. At that time, the Samaritans in the north of Jerusalem, which had been brought in by the Assyrians, claimed they had inspired writings. So the Samaritans started writing their own books and claiming to be inspired. But God then inspired Ezra to do the final canonization of the Old Testament, which became the temple scriptures as backed up by Jesus Christ and the apostles. And we can see because he included scriptures like Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, which gave a summary of all the events up to them. Ezra also started the reading of the Megalot. The Megalot are the five books, which are Song of Solomon's, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, which are read during the specific holidays. He also started the triennial reading of the law and prophets. In other words, every third year they would cycle through the law and in parallel, would cycle through the prophets, which would be read in the synagogues. Now, there's an interesting scripture, just as a point of interest, which is in Luke chapter 4, verse 16 through 17. Luke chapter 4, verse 16 and 17. And so, this is Christ came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. You know that story, he stood up to read, then he sat down and everybody looked at him. But the interesting point, brethren, is that in Greek, the word Sabbath is a Sabbathan, plural, which is on the day of the Sabbath. Which it possibly could imply there was a day of Pentecost. And if there was a beginning of his ministries, ministry started in AD 70 towards the feast of Tabernacles around that time frame. That means Pentecost, therefore, would have been AD 28. And they were reading through these scriptures every three years. And in this scripture, they read, they were reading the law and the prophets, He is reading YAH, and says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of the sight of the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And if you look in Old Testament, there was a comma, but He stopped there and He went and sat down. Why did He read the scripture? Because this was part of that reading every three years, on that specific day, they were to read the scripture. And interesting, three years later, when they would read the scripture, would be Pentecost AD 31, when God's Holy Spirit was given on the Day of Pentecost. That's very, very interesting. So, brethren, look at Acts 13, verse 14 and 15. Acts 13, verse 14 and 15.

And when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Psydia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. And after reading of the law and prophets, you see, there was that routine of reading the law and the prophets in the synagogue, and they were cycling it through it every year. And that was being done at the time of Christ and the apostles.

Also, in Matthew 5, verse 18, that's the scripture that you've read many times. Matthew 5, verse 18.

But let's read it now from this context, which says, For surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. They had the right scriptures, they had the right law, they had everything. Jesus Christ backed up the writing, and whatever the process of putting that Old Testament Bible compiled together, that canonization, He backed it up. And He basically said that the words had been faithfully preserved.

Brethren, the Old Testament scripture was inspired by God, through God's Holy Spirit, was put together by God's servants, and God gave that scripture of the Old Testament to us, and we'll do the same thing to look at the New Testament as well. But the point is, we have the correct Old Testament books. We have the complete set of Old Testament books. No books were lost. There are no missing books. We have seen that God has used these people to do the Old Testament canonization, and you and I can have the confidence that we have the complete Old Testament as God breathed. So in the next sermon in this series, brethren, I'll do the same analysis of the New Testament.