Revelation 22:18–19
18For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Deuteronomy 4:2 2
Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.
Proverbs 30:5–6
“Every word of God is flawless;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Do not add to his words,
or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
The Bible is not a single volume but a collection/anthology of writings put together over many centuries. Further, the canon of scripture was decided after several hundred years after the writing of the most recent book (Revelation). Which is all to say that the Bible, at least in the cited references, cannot be self-referential because “the Bible” didn’t exist at the times of those references. They were all individual writings. So Revelation, for instance, is referring to the words of the prophecy contained in Revelation, NOT the Bible.
Jesus quotes Genesis, Exodus, Psalms and Isaiah treating them as one authoritative Scripture despite them being individual books.
Paul cites “Scripture” while quoting multiple books
Peter calls Paul’s letters “Scripture” before any formal canon existed.
I agree that the books of Scripture were written individually and only later recognized as a canon. The Christian claim is that they share one divine Author. That’s why Scripture itself consistently warns against adding to God’s revealed word across covenants and genres. The unity isn’t based on later binding, but on a coherent, progressive revelation that Christians believe culminates in Christ and the apostolic witness.
You have to be really careful to distinguish between the position that the canon is temporarily, functionally closed and that it is closed permanently. You can definitely find plenty of people who support the strict position, but I believe that it is less popular than the looser position overall, especially when looking outside of Christian apologetics circles.
There’s a few good reasons to think that the canon is only temporarily closed, not permanently closed:
The Bible wasn’t canonized or seen as a single book until after Revelation was written, so it is unlikely that John had the whole Bible in mind.
Revelation says that the restriction is on “the book of this prophecy”, i.e., the book of Revelation itself. Even if you correctly consider that “prophecy” is more than just foretelling, there are parts of the Bible that don’t count as that.
If you read them carefully, you’ll see that Deuteronomy and Proverbs do not say anything against saying God’s words in a different way or recontextuallizing them to apply them to a different situation. The problem only comes about if you change the meaning of the message.
At least according to both Claude and GPT, the idea of a strict closure didn’t take root until the Reformation (about 1.5 millennia later).
A non-strict interpretation fits better with the fact that the story of the Bible is not yet finished. If the story is unfinished then it’s likely that God will do more works which ought to be recorded. For example, it would probably be helpful to the people living through the great tribulation to know what the actual history was that led up to that event.
Upon a quick search it looks like it’s done.
Revelation 22:18–19 18For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Deuteronomy 4:2 2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.
Proverbs 30:5–6 “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
The Bible is not a single volume but a collection/anthology of writings put together over many centuries. Further, the canon of scripture was decided after several hundred years after the writing of the most recent book (Revelation). Which is all to say that the Bible, at least in the cited references, cannot be self-referential because “the Bible” didn’t exist at the times of those references. They were all individual writings. So Revelation, for instance, is referring to the words of the prophecy contained in Revelation, NOT the Bible.
Jesus quotes Genesis, Exodus, Psalms and Isaiah treating them as one authoritative Scripture despite them being individual books.
Paul cites “Scripture” while quoting multiple books
Peter calls Paul’s letters “Scripture” before any formal canon existed.
I agree that the books of Scripture were written individually and only later recognized as a canon. The Christian claim is that they share one divine Author. That’s why Scripture itself consistently warns against adding to God’s revealed word across covenants and genres. The unity isn’t based on later binding, but on a coherent, progressive revelation that Christians believe culminates in Christ and the apostolic witness.
You have to be really careful to distinguish between the position that the canon is temporarily, functionally closed and that it is closed permanently. You can definitely find plenty of people who support the strict position, but I believe that it is less popular than the looser position overall, especially when looking outside of Christian apologetics circles.
There’s a few good reasons to think that the canon is only temporarily closed, not permanently closed: