Church of the East position on non-canonical Books

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi Mike,

I would agree with Christina, it's more of the date than what language they were written in. For instance, if Thomas or Peter had given the congregation in Babylon a Greek copy of Revelation I'm sure they would have included it as canonical. Whether or not anyone there would have been able to translate is another story!

It may seem that the CoE has the most restrictive criteria for canonicity, however believe it or not there has never been a synod or council declaration on the matter. Consider it just a matter of practice, really. They just never had these books. As late as the 19th century there were still remote mountainous areas in modern-day Turkey that had never heard of these 5 books, and this area had been a Christian stronghold until the early 20th century before the Armenian/Greek/Assyrian genocide.

See below URLs for some nice info.

http://www.shlama.be/shlama/content/view/212/178/
http://www.shlama.be/shlama/content/view/213/179/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakk%C3%A2ri