The Book of Revelation is without doubt the most complicated, controversial, and esoteric of the entire Bible! Some even doubt that it should even be in the Bible at all, and assert that its place in the Bible Canon was controversial from the start. This is false. Why? The early acceptance of Revelation by the Christian Church is proof that the book is divinely inspired.
Although it is popular to do so, we should not measure the existence of the New Testament (NT) canon (authoritative, or inspired, books) just by the existence of lists, which came into being somewhat later than the NT canon’s coming into existence. When we examine the way the NT books were viewed and used in the very early days of Christianity, we can determine the de facto existence of a functioning canon by about 100 CE.
The views expressed here are admittedly a little different than the traditional, or orthodox, view of how the New Testament canon, in particular, and the Bible as a whole, came into acceptance. The views presented here actually stand in stark contrast to modern-day populist scholars, like the agnostic Bart Ehrman.
The New Testament canon was established in the first century by Holy Spirit. Let’s examine some notes on the scriptures which confirm this fact:
2 Peter 1:16-21 – Peter affirms Old Testament prophets wrote God’s word. He puts himself and other apostles in the same category.
2 Peter 3:15-16 – Paul’s letters were on the same level as all the “rest of the scriptures.” That is, inspired of God. Early Greek manuscripts show Paul writing 14 letters.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 – The rest of the scriptures (the Old Testament) are inspired of God. We can broaden this now, and apply the principle to all 66 canonical books as shown below:
The early church is unanimous that the Gospel According to Mark was written by John Mark. (Acts 12:12; Acts 12:25; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:13; Acts 15:37; Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24)
Papias – c. 140 quotes an earlier source saying:
The title “According to Mark” appears in all the ancient canonical lists and many ancient manuscripts, and is thought to have been added very early in the history of the text.
Early church fathers all affirm Mark wrote the Gospel:
Second and third century books falsely claimed apostles as authors rather than secondary figures such as Mark.
Many “Bible scholars” claim that Matthew relied on Mark’s gospel as the primary source to write his gospel. Why would Matthew the tax collector, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, rely so much on Mark’s account? The answer? He didn’t. He was an eyewitness of much of what he wrote, so there was no need for him rely on Mark, who was not an eyewitness, but a recorder of the apostle Peter’s memories (1 Peter 5:13). Both Matthew and Mark wrote their gospels “inspired by God” (2 Timothy 3:16).
Is the Bible reliable? Does it contain myths, or are the stories true? Did the writers simply write down stories they had heard from other people, or did they experience the things firsthand that they wrote about?
The Bible is not made up of cleverly devised fables or myths. “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:16 NAB). Many of the Bible writers were actually eyewitnesses of their written accounts. “But we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16 NAB; see also 1 Peter 5:1) Eyewitnesses also handed down their accounts to others who carefully researched these things. (Luke 1:1-3) Still others studied and pondered. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10) But none came from human will. (2 Peter 1:21)
Who wrote 1 and 2 Peter, two letters of the 27 books of the New Testament? Many critics say that they written by a pseudonymous writer, or writers, falsely claiming to be the apostle Peter, and especially is this said about 2 Peter.
“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ . . . ” (1 Peter 1:1). ” . . . as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 5:1 NAB). The writer of 1 Peter clearly identifies himself by name as “Peter”, and also “an apostle of Jesus Christ” that is, one of Christ’s original 11 faithful apostles, and “as a fellow presbyter”, that is, an older, mature Christian man, having the position in the church of “elder” (1 Peter 5:1 most translations), and as a “witness to the sufferings of Christ”, meaning he was actually there in person alongside Christ when Jesus was on earth. These descriptions fit the apostle Peter.
The historical accuracy of the Luke-Acts two-volume work is frequently challenged. Scholars dispute such issues as the dating of the reign of Quirinius (Luke 1:5; 2:2) and references to Palestinian geography (Luke 4:44; 17:11) and raise additional historical questions regarding the numerous speeches in Acts (e.g., Acts 2:14-36) and the harmonious portrayal of the early church (Acts 4:32-35). The most critical historical objection to Acts concerns the details of Paul’s ministry. Although certain passages suggest that Luke was a traveling companion of Paul (Acts 16:10-17; 27:1—28:16), some scholars deem this tradition untenable on the basis of perceived difficulties in harmonizing the life and perspective of Paul as presented in Acts with details about his life found in his letters.