No discussion: table regarding canonity of books

I am creating a shareable notebook of Catholic responses to a Protestant "evangelize Catholics" resource in Logos. I have run into a section that claims all canonical books share these three characteristics:

claim to be inspired
include a miracle
include a predictive prophecy

Being basically lazy, I wondered if anyone knew of a table that showed each of the canonical books together with references where each of the three characteristics occurs. If I try it myself, I suspect that I would miss occurrences that the author would consider instances of the characteristics.

Please simply direct me to such tables or references to text that might help me create such a chart. I currently have no opinion on what the table will support until I've actually seen the data ... and unless you show that you have such a table, I'm not interested on speculation as to what it might show.

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Christian Alexander

See if this will work for you.

http://www.ntcanon.org/table.shtml

https://www.tcd.ie/library/early-irish-mss/canon-tables-an-index-of-the-gospels/

This is a google spreadsheet a friend of mine did. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gqvLVxgsrITOYtbxR903t8Xi-FbppOu9c8Q44T-tbb4/edit#gid=0

https://www.rosarychurch.net/bible/canonical.html This looks to be a good source.

https://cameronfreeman.com/socio-cultural-anthropology/anthropology-religion-christian-tradition/process-establishing-maintaining-judean-boundaries-canonization-scripture/

I have not read this book but it was on an optional reading list for a class on Textuality in the New Testament world. Synopses and Lists Textual Practices in the Pre-Modern World by Teresa Bernheimer (editor) & Ronny Vollandt (editor) See PDF Here https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0375.pdf

A friend wrote this book: The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity Texts and Analysis by Edmon L. Gallagher, John D. Meade

Zeitlin, Solomon. "An Historical Study of the Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures." In Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, vol. 3, pp. 121-158. American Academy for Jewish Research, 1931.

Callaway, Mary C. "Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins." (1980): 130-131.

Thomassen, Einar. "Some notes on the development of Christian ideas about a canon." Canon and canonicity: The formation and use of Scripture (2010): 9-28.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1293589#Comment_1293589

Thank you Christian, but I was not looking for canon lists - I was looking for three specific characteristics within each canonical book.

I have run into a section that claims all canonical books share these three characteristics:

claim to be inspired

include a miracle

include a predictive prophecy

Being basically lazy, I wondered if anyone knew of a table that showed each of the canonical books together with references where each of the three characteristics occurs.

But I do appreciate your effort - it has some resources worth checking out for other purposes.

Justin Gatlin

I can't help because I have never seen that list. It seems bizarre to me - Does 3 John have any of the proposed criteria?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1293660#Comment_1293660

I have never seen that list.

I'm glad to hear you say that. I had assumed that it was some corner of evangelical thought I had not run into. But if I can chalk it up to the specific author, a simple "prove it" is a sufficient response.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1293666#Comment_1293666

I have never seen that list.

I'm glad to hear you say that. I had assumed that it was some corner of evangelical thought I had not run into. But if I can chalk it up to the specific author, a simple "prove it" is a sufficient response.

Indeed. I've never heard of that idea either, and I grew up in "Catholics need to be evangelized" circles. It sounds very idiosyncratic. If the author has not provided the data, I would ignore it. It's not your job to do their homework for them.

The only thing I came across in trying to find something to back that "three characteristics" idea up was the claim that there are "3808 times" in the Old Testament where the text claims to be inspired by God, which would probably statistically put at least one in each book of the OT, but I'd still need to see that proven to believe it.

This is from "Chapter 2: Its Inherent Authority" in The Authority of the Bible by Colin Peckham:

"A great proportion of Scripture is definitely stated to consist of the Word of God. The phrase ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and similar phrases ‘are found 3808 times in the Old Testament.’ [footnote: Evans, William, The Great Doctrine of the Bible, Moody, Chicago, 1949, p. 203.] In fact, ‘God said’, ‘the Lord said’, ‘God spoke’ and similar statements occur ‘over 700 times in the Pentateuch. In the historical books there is a similar list of considerably over 400 … some 150 times in Isaiah alone.… almost 350 times in Ezekiel.’2 Of these figures, W. E. Vine states, ‘cumulatively it stamps the whole book with a divine impress.’ Leander Munhall points out that no fewer than twenty times does the prophet Isaiah explicitly declare that his writings are the ‘words of the Lord.’4 Almost 100 times Jeremiah says, ‘The word of the Lord came unto me’ or declares that he was writing ‘the words of the Lord.’ To Ezekiel it is said, ‘Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears. And go, get to the captives, to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, “Thus says the LORD God” ’ (Ezek. 3:10, 11).

"Daniel said, ‘Yet I heard the sound of His words’ (Dan. 10:9).
Hosea said, ‘The word of the LORD that came to Hosea’ (Hos. 1:1).
We read, ‘The word of the LORD that came to Joel’ (Joel 1:1).
Amos said, ‘Hear this word that the LORD has spoken’ (Amos 3:1).
Obadiah said, ‘Thus says the LORD God’ (Obad. 1:1).
We read, ‘The word of the LORD came to Jonah’ (Jonah 1:1). And again,
‘The word of the LORD that came to Micah’ (Mic. 1:1).
Nahum said, ‘Thus says the LORD’ (Nah. 1:12).
Habakkuk wrote, ‘The LORD answered me, and said’ (Hab. 2:2).
We read, ‘The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah’ (Zeph. 1:1). And,
‘The word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet’ (Hag. 1:1). And again,
‘The word of the LORD came to Zechariah’ (Zech. 1:1).
‘The word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi’ (Mal. 1:1).
In this last of the Old Testament books, twenty-four times we read, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’

"The Scriptures are called ‘oracles of God’ (Rom. 3:2), ‘the word of God’ (Luke 8:11), ‘the word of the Lord’ (Acts 13:48), ‘the word of life’ (Phil. 2:16), ‘the word of Christ’ (Col. 3:16), ‘the word of truth’ (Eph. 1:13) and ‘the word of faith’ (Rom. 10:8). The Bible never in a single instance says the thoughts of the writers were inspired, but that they received inspired words from God.

"The way in which the writers speak of the Scriptures as the work of the Spirit of God indicates clearly that they thought that the words which they received from God were inspired. David says, for instance, ‘The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His Word was on my tongue’ (2 Sam. 23:2).

"The psalmist speaks of the moral quality of the Scriptures in Psalm 12:6: ‘The words of the LORD are pure words … purified seven times.’ ‘The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes’ (Ps. 19:7, 8). In Proverbs 30:5 we read, ‘Every word of God is pure.’

"Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, ‘was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying … He (God) spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets’ (Luke 1:67, 70), attributing the words of the prophets to God.

"In the ten verses of Mary’s magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), there are numerous references and allusions to Old Testament Scriptures. She quotes 13 times from the Psalms (33, 34, 71, 83, 86, 98, 99, 103, 111, 118, 132, 138), 3 times from Samuel (1 Sam. 2—twice, and 1 Sam. 1:11), and once from each of the following: Genesis 17:19, Exodus 2:6, Ezekiel 21:26, Job 22:9. There are about 20 references from 18 chapters in the Old Testament. Her whole thought pattern is biblical as she links one Scripture to another. She welcomes the news of the coming Messiah and magnifies the Lord by joyfully reciting many Scriptural words and phrases. For her these held eternal value for she closed her great song with the words, ‘As He (God) spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.’ She stamped the verses which she had quoted from the Old Testament with divine authority.

Colin N. Peckham, The Authority of the Bible (Scotland; Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999), 31–34.

John MacArthur also cites that 3808 figure, but he doesn't identify the "Somebody" he refers to, but it might be the William Evans footnoted by Peckham (see above).

"Then secondly, under this testimony of the writers, there are direct claims to the inspiration of the Scripture. I mean, they actually claim to be inspired by God. You want to know how many times? Three thousand eight-hundred and eight times in the Scripture, and that’s the Old Testament only, 3,808 times in the Old Testament the writers say what they’re saying is the Word of God. Now how many times do they have to say it before we believe it? Three thousand eight hundred and eight. There are 2600 direct claims to inspiration. Somebody calculated 680 in the Pentateuch, 1307 in the prophets, 418 in the history books and 195 in the poets. So 2600 times they claim inspiration, 3808 times they identify themselves as speaking the Word of God."

John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).

As for claims of miracles or predictive prophecies in every book of the bible, I found no mentions of that anywhere.

Justin Gatlin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1293666#Comment_1293666

I'm glad to hear you say that. I had assumed that it was some corner of evangelical thought I had not run into. But if I can chalk it up to the specific author, a simple "prove it" is a sufficient response.

I would not want to claim there is any argument too outlandish for my fellow evangelicals to make but I have never heard anyone use anything but I wouldn't waste time on anything that is not common and can be disproven by spending 3 minutes reading Obadiah (which has no miracles).

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1293668#Comment_1293668

Thank you Rosie - that is very useful information for me to process.