<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>coltsfan715</b></i>
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote> The term for such books is apocrypha. The reason they are not included in the Bible is because their authenticity is questionable. </end quote></div>
I understand the reasons we are given as to why they are not in the Bible, but my question stands ... Who made the decision or determined that their authenticity was questionable and who decided that the books that were included were authentic?(an answer is not necessary unless you do know how the decision was made and why and who made it otherwise it is just a thought I have wondered) </end quote></div>
I'm reading about this at the moment. Let me summarise what I know about the selection of the canon (the Biblical books) so far...
Out of the books that are in the NT, only a few were ever questioned. Most, including all four gospels and all of Paul's letters, were universally accepted from the earliest days of the church. Remember that at this stage the church was only two or three generations old - tracing the authorship of these books was much easier then than it is now. A few of the books were accepted in some parts of the church but questioned for a while in other parts. Eventually a concensus was reached, not by someone deciding, but by natural acceptance. The canon was in fact never officially closed - no one ever said "Right that's it, these are the only scriptural books".
Those books that were excluded were never universally accepted - a few were accepted by some for a while, and were thought by others to be useful reading, but were too recent to be considered authoritative. Heretical books like the gnostic gospels were never included by any orthodox part of the church. All those that were eventually included were considered to be written in the first hundred years or so after Jesus' death. (Don't quote me on any of these approximations - I can't recall the figures off the top of my head.)
The 'gnostic' gospels of Thomas, Mary and so on, were (if I remember correctly) not mentioned in any of the records we have about the debates over which books should or should not be included. This shows that they were NEVER considered - but more than that, it suggests they didn't even exist at this stage. Even Marcion, whose theology was heretical and supported the same sorts of ideas expressed in these gospels, didn't include them in his version of the canon. The most logical conclusion is that they hadn't been written yet.
This ties in with most scholars' estimates - these 'gospels' are thought to be much much later than the canonical gospels and therefore considered inferior by most serious historians.
There is loads of information on this if you google it - just be careful about the sources. I also recommend a book called 'Reinventing Jesus' which explains all this stuff and much more in far easier language than I just have...
Here's an article adapted from that book which sets it out nicely - <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://go.family.org/davinci/content/A000000049.cfm
">http://go.family.org/davinci/content/A000000049.cfm
</a>
If you've read the Da Vinci Code by the way, take it all with a very large pinch of salt. It's a great read, but is also appallingly researched and wildly inaccurate.
Hi by the way, I'm Jo. So sorry that my first post here is such an in-depth theological nightmare! Who'd have thought there was a forum for Christians with CF, eh.