[Serious] Why aren't new books continually added to the Bible?

Question

I hope this question doesn't come off as offensive. Was there an ecumenical council which decided the Bible was complete? Or is the "completeness" of the Bible inferred from certain passages?

Answer 1

A critical feature for almost any religious establishment is that at some point revelation/canon was completed. This brings an end to charismatic authority and allows for text and tradition to replace it. If I were to start receiving orders from the Virgin Mary then I could overthrow the Catholic Church, whose power is based on the ability of priests to monopolize the Bible and Church tradition. In practice, religious establishments tend to develop opponents who try to open up alternitive avenues for religious authority such as new revelations. Apocalyptic beliefs can be useful in this regard. Take for example the 12th century Christian thinker Joachim of Fiore. He believed that we would soon enter a new Age of the Spirit. Just as the Age of the Father had the Old Testament and the Son had the New Testament, the Age of the Spirit would see humanity living under a new scripture (possibly the monastic Rule of Saint Benedict).

Answer 2

Great question. The topic of canonicity is one that is disputed among various denominations. I will leave it to Evangelical and Jewish scholars to answer from their own perspectives.

The texts of the Christian Scriptures were fairly well agreed upon in the early Church. So, for example, many of the surviving codices (from codex, a sort of ancient collection of works) contained most of the texts received as Scriptures by the church. The councils of Carthage and Hippo in the late fourth century articulated the canon that the Catholic Church embraces today. Nevertheless, even though this was the received tradition among Christian churches with only minor variations, no ecumenical (worldwide) council had articulated the canon as it stands at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century. After the Reformation, the Council of Trent listed the 73 books of the Bible not only as inspired, but inspired "with all their parts" (cum omnibus suis partibus), which was understood to include some of the disputed fragments (such as the beginning of John 8).

Catholics hold to a closed canon, because what is known as "public revelation" has ended with the death of the last apostle. Apostolicity (having the apostles as a source) was and remains a key criterion for Catholic reception of what is or is not Scripture in the New Testament. They are all deceased now. There are many pseudepigraphal and pseudonymous works that are in existence bearing the names of the apostles, but even among those that are not misleading or confusing, none of these works add anything new to public revelation. This is ultimately why there are no new texts being added to the Scriptures.

I hope that helps. Again, I leave it to my Evangelical and Jewish colleagues to explain the matter from their perspectives.