Hi Bible man,
Ray had a conference a few years ago where he discussed the Topic 'How We Got The Bible' in great detail. Here is an excerpt from the transcript.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5815.0.html -------
22 Is A Number Of Completeness
The number 22 completes the Hebrew alphabet. All that can be said can be said using these 22 letters. You can write every book there is with 22 letters. So the idea being everything that God had to say to us in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures could be said in those 22 letters and it’s done in 22 books. God always has a purpose for numbers and things like that.
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So we have got 22 books with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the Old Testament. Now that God has a new revelation, He is going to use a new language. At least as far as we know the language was Greek. But some insist Matthew was written in Hebrew, we don’t know that for a fact. I don’t think we can prove that.
But just like Ezra and Nehemiah closed out the Old Testament canon, we are going to see that Peter and John close out the New Testament.
Now the Catholic church knew that the canon was complete long before they came on the scene with their Ecumenical Councils. II Peter makes it clear that Peter knew what was Scripture, and John finalized everything. Just as Ezra penned the last book (II Chronicles) of the Old Testament, John penned the Last book of the New Testament (Revelation).
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General epistles James, Peter, John and Jude should come before Paul's epistles. They were first to teach, first in authority (Acts 15) and first in teaching the milk of God's Word, followed by Paul's strong meat of God's Word.
SEVEN CANONIZATION PERIODS
1. Moses
2. David and Solomon
3. Isaiah and Hezekiah
4. Jeremiah and Josiah
5. Ezra and Nehemiah
6. Peter
7. John
So the canonization fell to Peter and John.
We read of John, He instructs him in Revelation 1:1 “What you see, write in a book…” So somehow that book (Revelation) had to join up with all the other books, as did I, II and III John and the Gospel of John. So John wrote 5 books; I John, II John, III John, The Gospel of John and Revelation.
I said there was 22 books written by 66 AD and by the end of John’s ministry, he added 5 more.
22 +5 = 27 + 22 OT books, all total 49.
7 x 7 = 49 = total completion.
That’s how many books there are suppose to be, that’s how many we have. So we’ve got the complete Bible.
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Of course this is just a smidgen of what was revealed at that conferecne. Here is a link to the audios
November 2007 Mobile Conference - How We Got The Bible
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 1 11_03_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 2 11_03_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 3 11_03_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 4 11_03_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 5 11_03_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 6 11_03_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 7 11_04_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 8 11_04_07.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Session 9 11_04_07.mp3
mercy, peace and love
Kat