"Remember the former things of old…"-Isaiah 46:9
Christians believe that the Holy Spirit not only inspired the original authors of the Scriptures, but the editors and the communities that received them as well. This was a long process that ultimately culminated in what we call the “Canon.” “Canon” is from a Greek word meaning “measuring stick.” You could think of the canonical books as the books that measured up to the standards that these ancient religious communities used to determine what was especially inspired and what was less so.
This process was long and also complicated. In fact, we don’t really know all of the details about how the books in our Bible were composed, nor do we know much about how they came to be recognized as holy Scripture. When we talk about the formation of Canon, we should recognize four distinct processes: 1. the oral traditions that preceded many of our biblical narratives; 2. the original composition of the texts that were eventually included in our Canon; 3. the editing and redaction of these texts; and 4.