Acknowledgements Acknowledgements The Canon of Scripture From a Greek word meaning rule or measuring stick Canonization a realworld process So our faith can be strengthened So we can better understand how we got the Bible we have today ID: 169113
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AcknowledgementsSlide3
AcknowledgementsSlide4
AcknowledgementsSlide5
The Canon of Scripture?
From a Greek word, meaning “rule” or “measuring stick”Slide6
Canonization:
a real-world processSlide7
So our faith can be strengthened
So we can better understand how we got the Bible we have today
So we can be prepared to deal with
sceptics
So we can appreciate the work the early church fathers did for us
So we can recognize how God supervised these historical events
Why study the canonization process?Slide8
God has spoken.
God has spoken in these last days
through His Son.
The apostles of Jesus, as His commissioned representatives,
spoke with His authority.
PresuppositionsSlide9
The foundation of the church
Matthew 16:18
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
John 16:12-13
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.Slide10
The foundation of the church
Ephesians 2:19-20
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.Slide11
God has spoken.
God has spoken in these last days
through His Son.
The apostles of Jesus, as His commissioned representatives,
spoke with His authority.
Jesus superintended the canonization process as part of His goal of building
the church on the foundation of
apostolic teaching.
PresuppositionsSlide12
Christ oversaw the recognition of the canon
The necessary deduction from such
a promise
(
Matt.
16:18) is that Christ's
church would
not fail to recognize the authentic witness to Himself when it was written
down in
books and letters. This assures us that the church would receive the
genuine canon
. The promise of Christ thus creates the presumption that the books of
the orthodox
and received canon are authentic
.
– Sam WaldronSlide13
Christ oversaw the recognition of the canon
Which means…
We would expect the church to agree on the canon within short
order
but we
aren't surprised
when we find
that there was
not immediate, unanimous
consent.Slide14
The Roman Catholic View
The church authoritatively declares which books are canonical.
A foundational question:
Who decides which books are canonical?
Possible answers:
PROBLEM: This reverses the proper order. Instead of the church being grounded on the authority of Scripture, Scripture becomes grounded on
the authority of the church.Slide15
A foundational question:
Who decides which books are canonical?
Ephesians 2:19-20
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets
, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
Possible answers:
The Roman Catholic View
The church authoritatively declares which books are canonicalSlide16
A foundational question:
Who decides which books are canonical?
Possible answers:
The Lutheran View
Canonical books can be recognized by their proclamation and concentration
on the person and work of Christ.
PROBLEM: This led to suspicion and criticism of those
New Testament
books that did not seem to point to Christ as much, such
as Hebrews
, Jude, Revelation and especially James.Slide17
A foundational question:
Who decides which books are canonical?
Possible answers:
The Reformed View
Canonical books of the Bible are
self-authenticating and can be recognized (through the testimony of the Holy Spirit by and with the Word) by their many divine
excellencies
such as their majesty, consent of its parts, light to convert and convince sinners, etc.)Slide18
A Self-Authenticating Canon
“The Church did not create the canon,
but came to recognize, accept, affirm, and confirm the self-authenticating quality of certain documents that
imposed themselves as such upon the church
.”
– Bruce Metzger
“It is the simple truth to say that the
New Testament books became canonical because no one could stop them doing so.”
– William BarclaySlide19
What makes up the Biblical Canon?
In the Old Testament, the revelation which was given to Moses and the Prophets was canonical.
The NT often sums up the OT referring to it as “Moses and the Prophets” or “The Law and the Prophets”
In the New Testament, Jesus’ teachings are canonical. And since He wrote no books but instead commissioned the apostles as His representatives, their teachings are canonical.Slide20
Which old covenant books are
non-canonical?
The ApocryphaSlide21
Why is the Apocrypha non-canonical?
Not in the Jewish canon
Written in the 2
nd
century BC, long after the Spirit of prophecy had departed from Israel following its final prophets
(Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi)
They do not contain the divine,
self-authenticating perfections of
true Scripture.
For example, they lack the divine quality
of truthfulness.Slide22
Truth problems in the Apocrypha
The author of
Tobit
gets various dates wrong.
Judith
incorrectly identifies Nebuchadnezzar as the ruler of the Assyrians, not the Babylonians.
In
Tobit
, an angel tells a man that burning fish hearts and livers can ward off demons.
2 Maccabees
teaches that praying for the dead can bring them atonement and deliverance from sin.
Tobit
teaches that salvation can be obtained by financial generosity.Slide23
The recognition of the NT canon
Divine, self-authenticating qualities
Apostolicity
: written by an apostle
or the associate of an apostle
Orthodoxy
: conforming to old covenant revelation and to the teaching of other books known to be apostolic
Catholicity
: accepted by a wide
number of churches
What criteria were used to
recognize
an authoritative book?Slide24Slide25
The early years of the canon
In the first few decades of Christianity
(early 1
st
century), much of the teachings of Christianity would have been oral tradition.
By the end of the 1
st
century, Christians were receiving teaching both orally and by the written word.Slide26
The early years of the canon
The Elder used to say: Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he [Peter] remembered…
Matthew collected the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.
– Papias of Hieropolis (125 AD)
(Writing to the Corinthian church)
Take up the epistle of that blessed apostle, Paul… To be sure, he sent you a letter in the Spirit concerning himself and
Cephas
and
Apollos
.
– Clement of Alexandria (95 AD)Slide27
140 AD:
Marcion
of
Sinope
Taught
dualism
: the spiritual realm was good while the material world was evil
Denied the authority of the Old Testament
Denied that the god of the Old Testament and New Testament were the same being.
Created the first New Testament canon
A heretic
Taught
doecetism
, the belief that Jesus only appeared to
be humanSlide28Slide29Slide30Slide31
The Church’s response to
Marcion
The Church already had its roughly defined collection of Christian books which it was beginning to treat as Scripture. Nevertheless, if the
idea
of a specifically Christian canon was deeply rooted in the Church's own convictions and practice, Marcion played an important part in the practical
emergence
of one. What none of the great ecclesiastical centers, so far as we know, had done, and what his initiative seems to have provoked them to do, was to delimit their lists of authorized Christian books in a public, official way.
– J.N.D.KellySlide32
156 AD:
Montanism
Prophecies were accompanied by frenzied “ecstasies” (that resembled madness)
The basis for their new revelation was that the promised coming of the Holy Spirit had started with the apostles, but was only perfected
(and now complete) with new prophets.
Montanus, along with two women disciples, claimed the ability to deliver new prophetic revelation.Slide33
The Church’s response to
Montanism
The opposition to Montanism rested on the conviction that the Christian revelation was
complete
. Nothing new in principle could be added to the apostolic deposit of the faith. The Church, too, was cautious about ecstasies in which the prophet lost the use of his reason and identified himself with God. "I am come neither as an angel, nor as an ambassador, but as God the Father," said Montanus. Against such extravagant claims,
the Church insisted on the sufficiency of the apostolic tradition.
– Cyril Richardson Slide34Slide35Slide36Slide37Slide38Slide39Slide40
What do we make of the lateness of the Eastern church to accept the full canon?
They were not under pressure by the Western church to conform, which makes it all the more impressive that the Eastern and Western churches came to same firm commitments on the core of the canon.
Though their conclusions were different than the Western church’s for a time, they still used the same criteria to examine books, including apostolicity and orthodoxy.Slide41
What do we make of the lateness of the Eastern church to accept the full canon?
Because there was no church council to authoritatively decree what was canonical, it forced the church to wrestle with the text and work out these issues on its own.
Because there was no church council deciding this, it shows that the canon was established not by the authority of men, but by the self-authenticating authority of the scriptural books themselves.Slide42
A collection of authoritative books
What the
musical
public can recognize unaided, those with
spiritual
discernment in the early Church were able to recognize in the case of their sacred writings through what Calvin called the interior witness of the Holy Spirit.
This internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, however, does not
create
the authority of Scripture (which exists already in its own right), but is the means by which believers come to
acknowledge
that authority.
– Bruce Metzger Slide43Slide44Slide45
Should other books have been
included in the New Testament?
Walter Bauer
Early Christianity was a mess, with mass disagreement over Christian theology.
There was no “Christianity”. There were many different “Christianities” fighting for supremacy.
Each “Christianity” had its own books.
Therefore the 27 books we have should not be considered special or privileged. They simply represent the books belonging to the Christian sect that won and became dominant.Slide46
The media loves a conspiracy theorySlide47
What about the apocryphal gospels?
All of them date to the 2
nd
century or later
None of them were ever serious contenders for canonization.
Manuscript evidence shows how much
more popular the canonical books were
We have over
60
NT manuscripts dating back to the 2
nd
-3
rd
century.
That includes
18
manuscripts of John
In that same time period, we have
17
manuscripts of all the apocryphal gospels combined (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Peter,
Protevangelium
of James, and all others)Slide48
The canonical books were cited far more frequently than the false gospels.
Clement
of Alexandria
c.150-215 A.D.
Book cited
Number of
citations
Matthew
757
Mark
182
Luke
402
John
331
All other
apocryphal
gospels
(combined)
17
What about the apocryphal gospels?Slide49
The Gospel of Thomas
Contains allegedly secret sayings of Christ that He delivered to Thomas.
The most famous of the apocryphal gospels…
…but not one that ever had even a
remote
chance of being considered canonical
Very infrequently cited… and when it was cited it was only in order to condemn it.Slide50
The Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Thomas 1:3
Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father.Slide51
The Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Thomas 1:114
Simon Peter said to him, “Let Mary leave us,
for women are not worthy of life.”
Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”Slide52
The Gospel of PeterSlide53
Conclusion
This process was a real-world process. The full recognition of the canon coincided with the growth and maturing of the church itself.
“The Church did not create the canon,
but came to recognize, accept, affirm, and confirm the self-authenticating quality of certain documents that
imposed themselves as such upon the church
.”
– Bruce MetzgerSlide54
Conclusion
Our presupposition is that God guided the process of canonization, guaranteeing that His people would recognize His words
.
Ultimately, our faith in the Bible is based on the self-authenticating nature of Scripture itself. History and church councils do not
prove
that we have God’s word. Nevertheless our faith can be strengthened by seeing how history
supports
the truth that the New Testament we have is the complete, authoritative and sufficient revelation of Christ to His church.Slide55