...ing him as John the apostle.
Hebrews was doubted because of the author thereof did not identify himself. It’s not that anything was wrong with the theology of Hebrews, but it had to do with the criteria of apostolicity. It came to be accepted as a letter by Paul, although throughout the centuries some have expressed doubts upon the Pauline authorship. Clement believed that the letter “was written by Paul, to the Hebrews, in the Hebrew tongue; but that it was carefully translated by Luke, and published among the Greeks.” Origen said, “But as to who wrote the epistle, only God knows the truth.” Some think that it was a sermon by Paul Transcribed or modified by Luke.
Lastly, the Book of Revelation was doubted because of its unique genre to what was already known of the New Testament, the question about which John wrote it, and its content. The book of Revelation belongs to the genre of apocalyptic, sometimes it is called the Apocalypse, after the first word in the book (Ἀποκάλυψις, apokalupsis). No other book in the Bible is as much symbolic and apocalyptic as the Revelation, also not to mention that nothing like it appears in the NT, therefore, it was unique to the NT. As to the authorship question, I believe that the apostle John was the author. Who else could simply refer to himself by the first name and expect to be known to at least seven churches in the first century? Furthermore, there are some unique concepts to both the Apocalypse and the Gospel of John. Christ as the Word (John 1:1; Rev. 19:13); Christ as the Lamb of God (John 1:29; Rev. 5:6-8); Christ as the Witness (John 5:31-32; Rev. 1:5); the unique translation of Zechariah 12:10, which deviates from the LXX, but is in agreement with each other (John 19:37; Rev. 1:7). Lastly, because of the content of the book. It was wise for the church to not be rash in accepting a book of dragons, beasts, 666 and a millennium, as there were more apocalyptic books circulating in the early church, trying to deceive people into thinking that they were written by apostles. It was cautious of the church not to be to rash about receiving it into the Canon.
As a short time passed, these books came to be recognized by the church as authentic and received as Scripture. Since then there has not been controversy concerning the NT canon. The Protestant, as well as the Catholic branch of Christianity, accepts the same canon of the New Testament. As to the Old Testament canon, there has been a lot of controversy throughout church history as to the question of the Apocrypha, but I believe that our question is settled by looking to what the Jews possessed and viewed as God-given Scripture in paragraph 3.
The Inspiration Of Scripture
What do we mean when we say that Scripture is inspired? What does it mean that 2 Timothy 3:16 in the KJV says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God”? Why do we believe that Scripture is inspired? To answer the last question first: we believe in the inspiration and divine character of the Bible because that is what the Bible itself testifies to its character. We believe in the inspiration of Scripture, whatever that is, because God, in the Bible, testifies to it.
2 Timothy 3:16
Dr. John Frame defines inspiration as “a divine act creating an identity between a divine word and a human word.” Inspiration is the doctrine which teaches that while it is true that human authors wrote the Bible, yet their words are exactly what God wanted to have. In this way,...
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