We could probably debate the canonicity of a few of the minor epistles. But the church was quite confident of the apostolic origins of the 4 gospels, with good reason IMO. And they were also aware of the dubious provenance of documents such as Gospel of Thomas and the Protoevangelium of James. This is not to say that there is nothing of interest or value in those documents; just that there are good reasons for their exclusion from the canon.
Best,
Chris
No, things weren’t nearly as simple as you make them seem (although certain books did inspire more confidence than others.) I read The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce Metzger some time ago. I highly recommend it. There is also a good section on the NT canon in The Oxford Bible Commentary. It was centuries before all of Christendom had the very same NT canon.
btw, I fixed the errors in my first post about the canon.
I did read Metzger’s book some time ago, and concur with your esteem for his work.
Blessings,
Chris
If one considers only absolutes, then scripture is the only information that we can trust but we cannot trust our ability to read it. Non biblical information while fallible is not trash either. Consider commercial aviation, to safely run an airliner one must get fluid dynamics, structural analysis, metallurgy,navigation, thermodynamics (engine) and chemistry (fuel) all correct and it is done. With respect to studying the Bible, we should expect to get the main points whatever our presuppositions provided we actually read the text. This cannot be said of the minor points
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