02 — The Canon of Scripture

How the Church came to recognize the books of the New and Old Testaments as Scripture, and how the Orthodox Old Testament came to be wider than the Protestant and Jewish canon — the anagignoskomena or “deuterocanonical” books. The section treats the canon soberly: firmly received at its core, and honestly unsettled at its edges.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The canon is not a list dictated from heaven but a discernment of the Church, made over centuries through the Fathers, the councils, and above all the books’ use in worship. This section tells that story and then treats the point where the Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish canons diverge — the wider Old Testament — presenting each position fairly.

Files

File	Description
the-formation-of-the-canon.md	How the New Testament and Old Testament canons formed — the homologoumena and antilegomena, the Fathers’ lists, the councils, and the decisive role of liturgical use; the distinctive Orthodox position of the Apocalypse.
the-wider-old-testament-and-the-anagignoskomena.md	The “deuterocanonical”/anagignoskomena books from the standpoint of the Church’s reception, with the Protestant, Jewish, and Roman Catholic canons reported fairly in their own terms; the varying Orthodox lists — sober, not settled.

See Also

• The Septuagint as the Church’s Old Testament — the text that carried the wider Old Testament
• The Bible as the Church’s Book — the Church’s priority over the canon
• The Seven Ecumenical Councils — the conciliar life within which the canon was received