Gallagher, Edmon L. and John D. Meade, eds. 2017. The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Introduction (bold added)
“To contribute to [the study over details and contents of the Christian biblical canon], this book aims to present the evidence of the early Christian canon lists in an accessible form for the benefit of students and scholars” (xii).
Importance of Canon Lists
“More than most other types of data, the lists directly inform us the books considered canonical in early Christianity” (xiv).
“. . . this book is not a full canon history but a tool for such research” (xv).
“Citations prove to be a problematic criterion for determining which books someone would list as constituting the canon” (xvi).
“Like citations, manuscripts provide important data concerning the scriptural practices of early Christianity, but their contents are not equivalent to a canon list” (xvii).
“A chief importance of the canon lists resides, then, in their providing explicit statements on the canon” (xvii).
“The canon lists do not answer all our questions about which religious books early Christians considered important and worthy of reading, or how and why the biblical canon developed the way it did. But the lists are the best sources for telling us specifically which books early Christians considered canonical” (xviii).
Aim of this Book
“We have tried to include every Christian canon list from the fist four centuries, a terminus that corresponds generally to the period at which most scholars would say that the biblical canon had achieved a stable shape (or as close to it as it would achieve until the sixteenth century) . . . In departure from our general principle of including early Christian lists, we have chosen to incorporate two Jewish lists, those of Josephus (which is technically not even a list) and the Babylonian Talmud. Those familiar with discussion on the formation of the Old Testament will immediately realize that these two lists—the only Jewish lists before the turn of the second millennium CE – often prove crucial in scholarly treatments of the Jewish or Christian canons, so that this book would seem incomplete without them” (xix-xx).
Practical Benefits
See chart on xx-xxii. Easily compare Jewish / Protestant / Roman Catholic / Greek Orthodox biblical canons, also “attempts to present the biblical canons of these traditions in reliance on a significant Bible or canon list” (xx), e.g., for RC Council of Trent, 1546.
See “The Development of the Christian Biblical Canon” (1-56): “First, given the lack of institutional control over this matter, we might be surprised by the basic unity of the two dozen early canon lists collected in this volume.” And, “The lack of early official pronouncements on the canon means that the evidence for the development of the canon must be sought in disparate and contested locations, particularly the remains of manuscripts and scatter statements from various writers” (2).
See Appendix – “Antilegomena [meaning: writings with disputed reception] and the More Prominent Apocrypha” (261-284): “This appendix contains basic information regarding certain disputed writings, whether writings that eventually did become canonical (e.g., Ecclesiastes, Esther, Hebrews) or writings that did not (e.g., Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter), or writings that became canonical for only some Christian traditions (e.g., Tobit, Jubilees)” (261)