018-Who Chose the books of the New Testament & the Qur’an?-Canon

Jay Smith

Published on Nov 23, 2006 by Pfander Films

Who chose the 27 books of the New Testament Canon, and the 114 books of the Qur’an? The New Testament canon, codified in the 4th century, reflected the books always accepted by the early church, using 5 criteria: Was it written by an apostle; a man of God, worthy to write it; did it have any contradictions or errors; did it change people’s lives; and was it accepted by the early church? There were many 2nd – 5th century sectarian, mainly Gnostic, writings which were all rejected because of their late dates, and their erroneous content, often contradicting the canonical books. Interestingly, they include many beliefs adopted and perhaps borrowed by the writers of the Qur’an. When we look at the Qur’anic canon, we find greater problems. Many books or codices of the Qur’an were not chosen, and so were burned by Uthman in 650 AD. What’s more, reference after reference say that verses and books of the Qur’an disappeared, were lost, forgotten, cancelled, went missing, were overlooked, changed and modified. In fact it wasn’t until 1924 that the Qur’an was finally canonized, proving that the canon of the Bible is more authoritative, and thus more trustworthy than that of the Qur’an.

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