Who Chose the Books of the New Testament?

Episode Outline:
0:00 How did the New Testament canon take shape?
0:54 Bart checks in from his mountain house
2:47 Why the canon matters so much today
4:53 What “canon” actually means
6:16 How Christians moved from many writings to a defined New Testament
11:25 What got left out of the canon?
13:52 Do different Christian traditions have different canons?
15:37 The criteria for inclusion: apostolic, catholic, and orthodox
18:56 Did the canon ever really change after it formed?
22:54 The Gospel of Peter and why some books were rejected
26:32 How the canon shaped Christian theology and interpretation
31:26 Were some canonical books seen as more authoritative than others?
33:45 Why Mark stayed in the canon even though Matthew and Luke reuse so much of it
35:31 Did church fathers care about historical reliability when forming the canon?
40:04 Bart’s Weekly Update: ancient ethics and Epictetus
42:06 Listener Q&A: apocrypha, proto-orthodoxy, and Luther

Episode Description
In this episode, Megan and Bart discuss the "origin of the canon," meaning: who chose the books that made it into the Bible, and why did they choose these 27?" They address related issues, such as:

-books, letters, and gospels that were considered authoritative by some early Christians, but were ultimately rejected on one basis or another

-early New Testament manuscripts that actually DO contain some rejected texts

-criteria that were used to determine which texts to include

-proto-orthodox church fathers and their influence

-what information early church fathers did--and did not--have to base their decisions on

Also watch these episodes:
Why is the Book of Revelation in the Bible?
Why is the Book of Revelation in the Bible?

Missing Manuscripts: Uncovering the Original Gospels' Text
Missing Manuscripts: Uncovering the Original Gospels' Text

The Gospel Truth: What Are the Gospels of the New Testament?
The Gospel Truth: What Are the Gospels of the New Testament?