The Canon Debate

The Canon Debate, edited by Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, is a substantial scholarly volume collecting essays from many biblical scholars on the historical formation of the Jewish and Christian scriptural canons, presenting genuinely differing scholarly positions on contested questions like when and how canon boundaries were fixed rather than advancing one editorial thesis. Its authority is that of a broad, multi-contributor academic reference reflecting the real range of expert opinion in a field where specific dates and mechanisms for canonization remain actively debated. Because it deliberately includes competing scholarly views rather than resolving them, any single claim drawn from the volume should be attributed to its specific contributing essay rather than treated as the book's own unified position.