Canon Bibliography

The best recent survey of the Church's New Testament canon is Bruce Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament: its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

Still useful is the earlier study by B.F. Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (London: MacMillan, 1855; 3rd ed., 1870; 5th ed. 1881, 6th ed. 1889; reprinted, Grand Rapids, 1980).

The best comprehensive treatment of the Old Testament canon is Roger T. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985).

For a good brief discussion of the Old Testament canon see E. Earl Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), Chapter 1, "The Old Testament Canon in the Early Church."

For a good treatment of both Old and New Testaments by a conservative, see F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988).

For a popular conservative survey of both the Old and New Testament canons see Norman Geisler and William Nix, General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986).

An excellent older work on the canon of both Testaments is that of Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or the Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions. New edition revised for the Presbyterian Board of Publication (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1851).

See also the bibliography for the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

Other useful books are:

• Archibald H. Charteris, Canonicity: A Collection of Early Testimonies to the Canonical Books of the New Testament (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1880).
• David G. Dunbar, "The Biblical Canon" in Hermeneutics, Authority and Canon, edited by D.A. Carson and J.D. Woodbridge (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1986), pp. 303-15.
• Herman Ridderbos, "The Canon of the New Testament", in C. F. Henry, ed., Revelation and the Bible: Contemporary Evangelical Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958).
• Herman Ridderbos, The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co., 1963).
• Laird Harris, The Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible: An Historical and Exegetical Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969, 1971, 1978).
• William H. Green, General Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon (London: Murray, 1899).
• F.W. Grosheide, Some Early Lists of the Books of the New Testament (Leiden, 1948).
• H.E. Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament (London, second edition 1904).
• Alexander Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament (London, 1913).
• Robert M. Grant, The Formation of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).
• Daniel J. Theron, Evidence of Tradition: Selected Source Material for the Study of the History of the Early Church, Introduction, and Canon of the New Testament (London, 1967; Grand Rapids, 1968).
• Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, I, II (Erlangen, 1888-92).