Chapter 11: Creating the Christian Bible Summary and Analysis

Mack opens the final chapter of the book introducing the concept of the "canon." A canon is a formally defined group of texts, such as the present Christian Bible. He explains that most Christian scholars, from the earliest days to the present, treat the Christian canon as something that was divinely inspired. The included texts were always meant to be in this canon, their place only needed to be revealed to Christians.

The Christians were not the first to develop the idea of a canon of religious texts. Judaism had long identified the five books of Moses as the basis of the Jewish canon, and the Christians adopted them as part of their own, as well. Judaism added other writings to their canon to reflect the changes in their own situation such as...