“But the word of god is not bound” (2 Tim 2,9) : reflections on the significance of the canons of scripture of different faith communities

Abstract

The annual seminario biblico organised by the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2023 dealt with what has been termed “lower criticism”, more often referred to as textual criticism. This study involves the laborious and painstaking analysis of the extant manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments in order to establish the relationships between them, and to ascertain their respective degree of originality and value. Such an analysis cannot but have a bearing on our evaluation of different canons embraced by different faith communities. This evaluation depends, not so much on which of the manuscripts are most faithful to the original version, but rather on which books have been accepted in their entirety as Scripture. [extract]