Josh Howerton on Canon of the Old Testament
66 books — Apocrypha useful but not Scripture
THE POSITION
The Protestant 66 books. The Apocrypha contains truth and has historical value — compared on air to the Didache — but is not authoritative. Argued from the earliest canon lists and from the claim that the Hebrew Bible is the canon Jesus used.
WHY THERE IS NO QUOTATIONTwo sources of unequal strength. Eleven doctrinally dense episodes of the Live Free podcast — 989,088 characters of auto-caption transcript — carry all thirteen positions; Howerton hosts that show with Carlos Erazo and Paul Cunningham, captions do not label speakers, and those transcripts were not retained, so a claim is attributed to him personally only where the surrounding text made the speaker unmistakable, and no quotation from them can be reopened. Positions drawn from the show rather than from him by name are the show's. Against that, one solo sermon has been transcribed and retained with its video id and timestamps — 4 Ways to KILL the Spirit of Fear, 16 Aug 2026 — and the two positions it bears on now carry a quotation any reader can open at the second it was said. Eleven positions still carry none, which is the unrepaired half of this figure and not a principle: the remaining 164 sermons are unread. Automatic captioning mangles proper nouns and technical theological terms throughout; corrections are bracketed.
44 Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
13 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Senior pastor of Lakepointe Church, Dallas–Fort Worth, and host of the Live Free podcast. Researched from primary-source transcripts — see the Live Free Podcast folder.
Cite this page
"Josh Howerton on Canon of the Old Testament", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/howerton/ot-canon (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/howerton/ot-canon).