By Bob Sullivan
Some people think that Jesus defined the canon of the Old Testament (OT). The canon is the list of books of the Bible.
The Catholic Church established the canon to include 73 books. This first happened in 367 AD when St. Athanasius, a Catholic bishop, set out the books he believed should make up the Bible. This list, or “canon,” was then ratified over and over again by regional councils of bishops, popes, and saints from then on.
Most Protestants believe the canon of Scripture only includes 66 books. The Protestant theory began in about 1517, or about 12 centuries after Christians had already settled on the 73-book canon. At that point, the Catholic Church made the 73-book canon official at the Council of Trent.
The only difference between the Catholic canon and the Protestant canon is the number of books in the OT. Both Catholics and non-Catholics agree on the 27 books in the New Testament. The books not included in the Protestant OT are the Dueterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or, Sirach, or Ben Sira), and Baruch, as well as parts of Esther and Daniel. This is how Protestants arrive at a 66-book canon.
What does Jesus say about the canon? Some look at Luke 11:51, and claim Jesus identified only 39 books in the OT, not the 46 books included in the Catholic Church’s OT.
Luke 11:51 reads:
“from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.”
How does this define which OT books should be in the Bible? According to some non-Catholics, they think Jesus was referring to the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22, in order to identify the last martyr of the OT.
In interpreting Luke 11:51 this way, it appears to provide bookends to the OT as Abel’s death is recorded in Genesis, the first book of the OT, and Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada, is found in 2 Chronicles 24, which the Pharisees held to be the last book of the OT or the Tanakh, which is what the Pharisees called their Bible.
This can be an important matter. If the Protestants are correct, the Catholic Church has officially blundered and included errant and uninspired books in the Bible for more than 1,600 years. However, if the Catholic Church is correct (which it is), the Protestants have committed the grave error of removing the inerrant and inspired word of God from the Holy Book.
For some non-Catholics, it seems they would rather accept error than acknowledge that the Catholic Church gave Christianity the Bible as we know and use it today. How could any loyal Protestant admit that they owe the existence of the Bible to Catholic Church? How can a Protestant believe in “Bible Alone” if the Catholic Church identified, compiled, translated, transmitted, and protected the Bible for centuries before “Bible Alone” theology came into existence? To do so would be to recognize the authority of the Catholic Church on a matter at the very center of non-Catholic Christianity. If the Bible is the final authority on all matters of faith, how could the Catholic Church be the Authority which gave us the Bible?
We can see that Jesus was not declaring the canon of Scripture in Luke 11:51 by looking at the other Biblical account of this same conversation. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus states:
“so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”
This is the same discussion, with the same people in Luke 11:51. You see this a lot in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are called the synoptic Gospels because they often tell about the same things, but in slightly different detail.
As you can see, the Zechariah in Matthew 23 is not the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24. It is a different Zechariah, and therefore, the Zechariah in Luke 11 is not the Zechariah in 1 Chronicles 24 either. In fact, the Zechariah identified in Matthew 23 and Luke 11 is Zechariah the prophet as identified in Zechariah 1:1.
In ancient and Apostolic times, a person could be called the son of the patriarch of any prior generation. In Zechariah the prophet’s case, he was called son of both Barchiah, his grandfather, and Iddo, his father.
Luke 11:51
Zechariah
2 Chronicles 2:20-22
Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada
Matthew 23: 35
Zechariah son of Barachiah
If anyone wants to argue that Jesus defined the OT canon in Luke 11, then they are saying that the true OT is really only 25 books long and nobody is right. They are also not only eliminating the last book of the prophets (Malachi) but the book of Psalms which has been central to the prayer life of Jews and Christians for centuries. No true Christian is ever going to claim that the book of Psalms is not the inspired and inerrant word of God.
Does Jesus agree with Protestants? Yes. Especially where Protestants agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church. This is not to say we don’t have a lot to learn from Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians. There are many good and holy examples from non-Catholic Christians which we can and should imitate. It is only where non-Catholics reject or misunderstand the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church where we need to help them recognize the truth. Meanwhile, they can help keep us on the straight and narrow, too.
