Replies on the Canon

I suppose the easiest thing will be for me to discuss your six points one by one, so here goes:

If I'm right, the only books where apostolic authorship is disputed (other than those five) are John's epistles and Revelation, so his statement doesn't lose too much weight if we don't accept the traditional views. And as he says in note 23, the traditional authorship is defended by Donal Guthrie in his book. I wonder whether Gruden thought that particular argument was too off-topic or too boring to include here?

I think that the main argument he makes for Hebrews inclusion is that it has divine authorship. Of course, this isn't something that can be measured directly but Christians should be able to tell the difference. If any piece of writing truly is the word of God, then it is "living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12, ignoring the circular logic of quoting Hebrews here!) There is something about reading the Bible than reading anything else, so doesn't it seem reasonable that early Christians - confronted with many letters from various church leaders - would be able to see which ones were dual authored with God? I'm not sure that I made much sense, sorry 'bout that.

I thought that as an apostle, Paul could do pretty much whatever he wanted! Seriously, though, does he have to have been at the events written about to confirm that the text was divinely authored? Some of the things that he wrote about he'd never seen. (We could, of course, cheekily dodge the topic by saying that in 1 Timothy 5 both Paul and God are affirming Luke as Scripture - and God was there!)

Halfway though. This is fun, though! One minor quibble, the 397AD you've quoted is when the Council of Carthage (whoever they are) wrote their list of the canon, on the previous page it says we have this list from 367. That doesn't change your point, though. But while the "contents page" of the Bible wasn't written until then, I think the books themselves were widely available which is how we have such a good idea of what the originals say and where and how errors were introduced. Is it also possible that the early church knew which books were Scripture but didn't bother writing the list down? This would be similar to how Jesus' divinity was not officially voted on until Nicea in 325, but this wasn't when the doctrine was formed, it was just a clarification of what had always been taught.

I had a look in the index. For "faith", "works" and "righteousness" in James and Paul we'll have to wait until chapter 36.

Finally, you said that these arguments wouldn't have convinced you, if you didn't already agree with the conclusion. So can I ask what is it that has convinced you?