Can you recommend a book of the history of the Bible? I mean how it was decided which books, letters were the Bible? How do I know which scripture (like in Isaiah or Psalms) are prophecy about the Messiah and which ones are not? I always wonder how people figured this out. -- Renee Albert (South Florida) and Michelle (London)

Many books, including True and Reasonable, have been written to clarify this matter. One of them I highly recommend is Neil Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), which I think is a must for your library. As for discerning which prophecies are messianic, why not take a look at the other material in at this website. There are a number of units on this very subject.

I have also recorded two audio series which address your question:
* How We Got the Bible (2005) -- 4 CDs. OT manuscripts, NT manuscripts, Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha, and Canonization.
* The Lost Books of the Bible (2006) -- 2 CDs. The false gospels, the Da Vinci Code, the completeness of the NT, etc.

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