Protestant Scholars.
Many Protestant scholars have questioned or denied the correctness of the Protestant canon. Calvin doubted Second and Third John and Revelation. Erasmus doubted Hebrews, Second and Third John, and Revelation. Zwingle and Beza rejected Revelation. Dr. Lardner questioned the authority of Hebrews, James, Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude and Revelation. Evanson rejected Matthew, Mark, Luke, and nearly half of the Epistles. Schleiermacher rejected First Timothy. Scaliger rejected Second Peter. Davidson thinks that Esther should be excluded from the canon. Eichorn rejected Daniel and Jonah in the Old Testament, and Second Timothy and Titus in the New.
Dr. Whiston excluded the Song of Solomon, and accepted as canonical more than twenty books not found in the Bible. He says: “Can anyone be so weak as to imagine Mark, and Luke, and James, and Jude, who were none of them more than companions of the Apostles, to be our sacred and unerring guides, while Barnabas, Thaddeus, Clement, Timothy, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, who were equally companions of the same Apostles, to be of no authority at all?” (Exact Time, p. 28).
The Rev. James Martineau, of England, says: “If we could recover the Gospel of the Hebrews, and that of the Egyptians, it would be difficult to give a reason why they should not form a part of the New Testament; and an epistle by Clement, the fellow laborer of Paul, which has as good a claim to stand there as the Epistle to the Hebrews, or the Gospel of Luke” (Rationale of Religious Enquiry).
Archbishop Wake pronounces the writings of the Apostolic Fathers “inspired,” and says that they contain “an authoritative declaration of the Gospel of Christ” (Apostolic Fathers).
The church of Latter Day Saints, numbering one half million adherents, and including some able Bible scholars, believe that the modern Book of Mormon is a part of God’s Word, equal in authority and importance to the Pentateuch or the Four Gospels.