Q.
Why haven’t any new books been added?
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José F. Morales Jr.
Who is...
?
José F. Morales Jr.
I love sweet tea.A.
Some believe that the Bible is closed, that no more books may be
added. They base this argument on the warning in Revelation: “I
warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:
If anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in
this book” (Rev. 22:18). Yet “this book” clearly refers to Revelation and not to
the whole canon.
“Canon” refers to the standard collection of books accepted by “the
church.” Interestingly, to this day, the “canon” is contested within the church
universal: Protestants, Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, and Chaldeans all have
assembled (“canonized”) slightly different collections. For example, the
Church of the East (Chaldean) only accepts twenty-two books in the New
Testament, whereas Protestants accept twenty-seven.
Nowhere within the Bible are there any specifi cations on what to include
and how. And nowhere does the Bible “close” itself from addition. So we can
feasibly say that books theoretically may be added. Shortly after the 1960s,
some Christians in America and elsewhere considered canonizing “The Let-
ter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. After all, it did have
epistle-like qualities. Yet I think the consensus within the church is to leave it
as is. (We’re still trying to make sense of the books we have. Why add to the
drama?)
This we can be sure of: We received these sacred texts, however assem-
bled, as a gift from the ancients of our respective traditions—an imperfect yet
wonderful gift to guide us in our journey. Our forebears collected these books
because their hearts were stirred by the words in their pages and because they
wished the same stirring upon the hearts of their children.