Hi Matt,
They are feeding you a line of bull. The twenty-seven books now included in the New Testament canon were first given notice (as far as we know) in what is called the Muratorian Canon, a document dated A.D. 170. An eighth-century copy of this document was discovered and published in 1740 by the librarian L. A. Muratori. The text names twenty-two books of the New Testament, including the four Gospels.
The manuscript is mutilated at both ends, but the remaining text makes it evident that Matthew and Mark were included in the now-missing part. The fragment begins with Luke and John (calling the latter the fourth Gospel) and cites Acts, thirteen Pauline letters, Jude, 1 John, 2 John, and Revelation as books that could be read in the church.
As time went on, numerous other Christians commented directly or showed implicitly what books they accepted as authoritative. Irenaeus was privileged to have begun his Christian training under Polycarp, who was a disciple of apostles. Then, as a presbyter in Lyons, Iranaeus had association with Bishop Pothinus, whose own background also included contact with first-generation Christians.
Irenaeus quotes from almost all the New Testament on the basis of its authority and asserts that the apostles were endowed with power from on high. They were, he says, "fully informed concerning all things, and had a perfect knowledge ... having indeed all in equal measure and each one singly the Gospel of God." Irenaeus reveals his trust in the four Gospels when he says, "The Word ... gave us the Gospel in a fourfold shape, but held together by one Spirit." In addition to the Gospels, he makes reference also to Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John, all the letters of Paul except Philemon, and the book of Revelation.
In the third century, many Christian scholars-such as Hippolytus, Novatian, Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Dionysius affirmed a fourfold, fixed Gospel text. These writers also affirmed the canonical status of most of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, even while recording doubts about such books as 2 Peter, Jude, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation.
In the beginning of the fourth century, Eusebius was the chief proponent of establishing the four Gospels and other recognized books as comprising the New Testament canon. But it was in the middle of the fourth century that the development of the canon came to its culmination with the Festal Letter for Easter (A.D. 367). Here, Athanasius of Alexandria included information designed to eliminate once and for all the use of certain apocryphal books.
This letter, with its admonition, "Let no one add to these; let nothing be taken away" (an allusion to Revelation 22:18-19), provides the earliest extant document that specifies the twenty-seven books without qualification.
At the close of the century, the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) decreed that "aside from the canonical Scriptures nothing is to be read in church under the name of Divine Scriptures." This decree also listed the twenty seven books of the New Testament, as we have them today.
Understand that the collection of various books by the Christian churches for use in worship was an inadvertent way of canonizing them. There is evidence that within thirty years of the apostle Paul's death (A.D. 60s), all the Pauline letters (excluding the Pastoral Epistles) were collected and used in the major churches.
It is true that the authority of some of the smaller letters of Paul (as well as those of Peter and John) were being questioned in some quarters for perhaps another fifty years, but this was due to uncertainty about their authorship only in those particular locales. And this, in fact, demonstrates that acceptance was not being imposed by the actions of councils or powerful bishops but was rather happening spontaneously, through a natural response of those who had learned the facts about authorship. In those places where the churches were uncertain about the authorship or apostolic approval of certain books, acceptance was slower.
According to early church writers, the criteria of the selection of New Testament books for use in Christian worship revolved around their "apostolicity." In other words, like those books of the Old Testament, these books were collected and preserved by local churches in the continuing process of their worship and need for authoritative guidance for Christian living.
The formation of the canon was a process, rather than an event, and it took several hundred years to reach finality in all parts of the Roman Empire. Local canons were the basis for comparison, and out of them eventually emerged the general canon that exists in Christendom today.
We know that the Gospels and the major epistles of Paul were "canonized" in the minds of many Christians as early as A.D. 90-100; that is, the four Gospels and Paul's Epistles were deemed to be Scripture worthy to be read in church. In fact, in Peter's second Epistle, he puts Paul's letters in the same category as "Scriptures."
We also know that the church fathers of the second century had a high regard for what is now the canonical New Testament text. Indeed, a study of the writings of the first five outstanding church fathers (all writing before A.D. 150)-namely, Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Polycarp-indicates that they used the New Testament writings with the same or nearly the same sacred regard that they attributed to the Old Testament writings. All were considered Scripture.
During the second half of the second century, more apostolic fathers were affirming that the New Testament writings were Scripture. This is especially evident in the writings of Irenaeus, who affirmed a fourfold Gospel text.
I would recommend reading:
1.
'The Many Gospels of Jesus' by Philip W. Comfort PhD
Amazon.com: The Many Gospels of Jesus: Sorting Out the Story of the Life of Jesus (9781414316048): Philip W. Comfort, Jason Driesbach: Books
and if you need a beginning primer on chruch history also as a starting point:
2. 'Church History in Plain Language' by Bruce L Shelly
Church History in Plain Language, 3rd Edition: Bruce L. Shelley: 9780718025533: Amazon.com: Books
