How to cite this article: Joshua N. Tilton, “Bible Versus Scriptures: Part 2—What Goes into the Canon?” Jerusalem Perspective (2026) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/38054/].
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In part one of this series I introduced the notion that there is an important distinction between the Bible and the Scriptures, but unfortunately this distinction is frequently overlooked.[1] At best, your Bible contains the Scriptures, an ancient library of sacred texts that have been conveniently packaged for you in a single volume. More likely, your Bible contains a translation of the Scriptures, in which case it is all the more important to distinguish between the two. The Scriptures are our shared spiritual heritage, linking us with fellow believers across time and space. Whatever languages Christians speak, we all share the same Scriptures: the Greek Scriptures of the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures, which we share with our Jewish brothers and sisters, and which we both—Jews and Christians—have inherited from our common spiritual ancestors. Bible translations, whether in English, Modern Hebrew (of the NT), Bulgarian, German, Chinese, or any other language, are merely a useful resource, limited in time and space, for those who cannot directly access the Scriptures.
The Scriptures mark Jews and Christians out as distinct communities through what we include and what we exclude in our canons, but they also create a bridge between these two communities, since Jesus and the apostles read the same Scriptures as their Jewish contemporaries, which links all of us to the spiritual heritage of the people of Israel going all the way back to Moses and Abraham.
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In the next three sections of this series we’ll take a closer look at the concepts of inspiration, authority, and holiness one by one.
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Notes
- See Joshua N. Tilton, “Bible Versus Scriptures: Part 1—More Different Than You’d Think,” Jerusalem Perspective (2026) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/38050/]. ↩
