"You idiot! Don't you know that the people who were writing the Bible didn't think they were writing the Bible? Don't you know that Paul's reference to 'all Scripture' being inspired by God was not a reference to what he was writing? He only had the Old Testament for Scripture. Don't you know that no one had the New Testament prior to the Council of Laodicea in the 4th century? If your Bible is so important, how did they get by without it for 400 years?"
The assault on God's Word continues. It started in the Garden (Gen 3:1) and continues to this day. I don't expect it to let up until Christ returns.
We accept the Old Testament as Scripture because the 39 books that we call "the Old Testament" were the Scriptures that Jesus referenced (e.g., Matt 21:42; Matt 22:29; Matt 26:54; John 5:39; etc.). Easy. After that, you'll get a debate. What Scriptures was Paul referring to when he wrote of the Scriptures that were God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16-17)? I've heard skeptics and preachers alike tell me that it was the Old Testament, and, while I'm sure he was referring to the Old Testament, I suspect he was also referring to others. As an example, Paul quotes Luke in a reference to "the Scripture" (1 Tim 5:18; Luke 10:7). Clearly Paul believed that there was more that qualified as "Scripture" than just the Old Testament. Peter calls Paul's writings "Scripture" (2 Peter 3:15-16). So the concept that "the Scriptures" were not limited to the 39 books of the Old Testament wasn't unknown during the writing of the New Testament. (Note: The reason we have 39 books while others have more is that Protestants (and others) admit only the books that were "Scripture" in Jesus's time while the Roman Catholics (and others) include apocryphal books -- books of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.)
So when did our 27 books become the "New Testament"? When did they become "Scripture"? Well, answering blithely, they became Scripture as soon as they were written. But perhaps I should be more clear.
If these 27 books are indeed "God-breathed" -- the Word of God -- as historical orthodoxy has maintained, then they were indeed Scripture from their writing. But that's not really what is being asked, is it? "When were they recognized as Scripture?" Okay, that's different. While some would like you to believe that it wasn't until the Council of Laodicea (AD 363) declared it so, that misses the point. One of the criterion used at that council was "What books do we commonly recognize as Scripture?" That is, they didn't pull up a list of books, point fingers, and decide what was in or not. These books had been in use a long time. The 27 books we recognize were written before the end of the first century, but "Scripture" was already in view. Clement of Rome wrote about at least 8 books (AD 95). Ignatius (AD 115) acknowledged at least 7. Polycarp (a disciple of the Apostle John) acknowledged 15 (AD 108). Irenaeus wrote about 21 (AD 185). The first "canon," the Muratorian Canon, was compiled by AD 170. That one included all but 3 -- Hebrews, James, and 3 John. These books were already in circulation and recognized by the 2nd century -- within a generation of their origination.
"Yeah, sure, but not everyone could read back then." Literacy rates back then were not what they are now, but our "New Testament" was already established as "Scripture" within 75 years of the final entry. They were widely circulated to be read by those who could and read to those who could not (e.g., Eph 3:4; Col 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27).
What we currently recognize as "Scripture" -- God's Word -- has been in circulation from the 1st century. They have been recognized as "Scripture" since they were first received. The Council of Laodicea (AD 363), the Council of Hippo (AD 393), and the Council of Carthage (AD 397) all affirmed the same 27 books. They all concluded that these 27 books were written by or in close connection to an Apostle (capital "A"). They agreed that the body of Christ at large agreed that they were Scripture. They agreed that these 27 had a consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching. They agreed that they bore evidence of high moral and spiritual values consistent with the work of the Holy Spirit. Bottom line, they agreed that God had determined these to be Scripture. Not them; Him. They were just agreeing with Him.
The naysayers are standing on popular but faulty ground. The Bible indicates that the authors of the New Testament understood that there was more than just the Old Testament for "Scripture." They may not have considered what they were writing to be "Scripture," but others did. If "all Scripture is God-breathed" and Paul (for instance) wrote Scripture (as claimed by Peter), then Paul's writings are God-breathed as well. And Christians knew it. Christians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD understood these to be the authoritative word of God. Did they read them in their homes daily? Probably not. Not all could read. But being read to was a very Jewish thing and gathering with believers was a very Christian thing and these books were in circulation for the day-to-day use of believers from the outset long before the Church was forced to make a formal declaration in that regard. And why did they have to do that? Because of the problem I'm addressing -- skeptics who follow their leader from the Garden and deny God's Word.
11 comments:
Martin Luther famously had reservations about the reliability of Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation. Any sympathy here for Luther?
Luther wondered about some of the books (who wrote them, their value, etc.), but Luther didn't actually eliminate any. He was famous for referring to James as an "epistle of straw," but what he actually said that in comparison to John's Gospel and Paul's Romans and Peter's first epistle, James was an epistle of straw "for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it." He didn't deny its canonicity; he questioned its usefulness ... like I might with, say, Philemon. We know he didn't "delete" James from his Bible because he wrote a commentary on it. In fact, in his translation of the New Testament he didn't withhold any of them. We should be careful not to overstate what Luther did or didn't think of the canon of Scripture.
Noted. :-)
Different topic for some future post perhaps = How sweeping is Acts 10:34 intended to be? I've had somebody online tell me the verse after it is showing that it is tightly constricted to matters of nationality, and not to be taken in a general sense. "He doesn't prefer Turks over Ethiopians"--that sort of thing.
I don't normally do requests. :)
However, I don't understand the question. It seems clear that Peter was saying that God doesn't care about heritage, bloodlines, nationality, race, etc. His plan is to save people from "every tribe and nation." Doesn't seem that complicated or controversial to me.
Here's a hypothetical conversation between "Catholic Cathy' and 'Protestant Pat" to show how Acts 10:34 could be invoked. This is more or less how it came up in casual chat online.
Cathy: It is wonderful that we can ask the saints to intervene on our behalf!
Pat: You mean your church's saints are already bodily in heaven?
Cathy: Certainly.
Pat: 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says they are still in their graves.
Cathy: That is talking about the general resurrection. Canonized individuals have already gone through the particular resurrection and are not waiting like ordinary believers and the unbelievers are.
Pat: To treat some believers so much more special than others violates Acts 10:34 which tells us the Lord doesn't treat people so asymmetrically.
Cathy: Nope. That passage in Acts is talking about nationality. Nothing more.
Cathy's narrow view of Acts 10:34 is a "safe" route for her to go, because it keeps her from losing this sort of argument.
Well, clearly, Protestant Pat is a 7th Day Adventist, but I'd argue that both Cathy (obviously) and Pat ("To treat some believers so much more special than others violates Acts 10:34 which tells us the Lord doesn't treat people so asymmetrically") are mistaken. The question in Acts 10 was Gentiles and salvation. At the beginning, Peter would have said, "No!" At the end, he realized it wasn't limited to Jews. To suggest that "no partiality" means the wooden one Pat is suggesting would run headlong into Rom 9:10-13.
In order to escape the perils of subjectivism, some Protestants put forward objective criteria for
determining the canon that do not carry with them the judgment of an infallible church endowed
with Christ’s authority.
Martin Luther wrote in his preface to the letters of James and Jude, “This is the true test of all
books, when we see whether or not they preach Christ. . . . Whatever does not teach Christ, that
is not apostolic, even though St. Peter or St. Paul taught it; again, what preaches Christ would be
Apostolic.”— But this is not a necessary condition for canonicity, nor is it even a sufficient one.
A simple gospel tract or a painting of the Crucifixion could be said to “preach Christ”, yet those
works are not inspired. The Third Letter of John, on the other hand, never even mentions the
name of Christ, yet it is considered to be the inspired word of God.
Some Protestants might say this is a problem with Luther’s ambiguous criterion to determine
the canon, not the use of objective criteria in general. According to F. F. Bruce in his book The
Canon of Scripture, the early Church used the criteria of apostolic authority, antiquity,
orthodoxy, and catholicity or universal reception in order to recognize if a book was inspired.
The Protestant apologist may ask, “Why can’t Christians today use these same criteria to justify
the authority of the canon apart from the authority of the Church?”
First, any claim that a certain set of criteria should determine the canon still involves a
subjective judgment. For example, why shouldn’t Luther’s criteria of “preaching Christ” be
joined to Bruce’s criteria? Second, it’s true that the Church used these criteria, among others,
when determining which traditions about the canon were apostolic in origin. But that doesn’t
mean these criteria can be applied by anyone apart from the Church’s judgment in order to create
the same infallible New Testament canon found in today’s Bibles.
Consider, for example, the criteria of apostolic authority or authorship. It isn’t a sufficient
condition for being considered canonical. Paul wrote letters we do not possess (1 Cor 5:9), and
many Protestants say that if one of those letters were ever discovered, they would not consider it
to be Scripture because, even though an apostle wrote it, this writing had not been “left to the
church”.— However, if the early Church could choose not to recognize an apostolic writing as
being canonical, then what’s to prevent the modern Church from doing the same? Could the
“Church” merely decide that portions of the New Testament, such as those that seem
contradictory or offend modern sensibilities, are not canonical? If the early Church did not have
apostolic authority, then there is no reason for the modern Church to continue to abide by
decisions with which it no longer agrees.
Apostolic authority also isn’t a necessary condition for being canonical, since Mark and Luke
were not apostles and their Gospels do not claim to have any connection to the apostles (Mark’s
role as Peter’s interpreter and Luke’s role as Paul’s traveling companion are known through
tradition). The Letter to the Hebrews was once attributed to Paul, but is now widely understood
to be non-Pauline. If apostolic authorship alone makes the New Testament distinct from any
other canon of literature, then several New Testament books that do not have apostles as authors
would have to be removed from the Bible.
A Protestant might say there is at least an apostolic tradition behind Mark, Luke, and Hebrews
that justifies their inclusion in the canon. However, it’s inconsistent for a Protestant to base the
identity of the Scriptures that serve as his foundational authority (or sola scriptura ) solely on
tradition and then say sola scriptura requires him to reject any doctrines he thinks are only found
in tradition. And such a move doesn’t give him the New Testament canon we have today,
because it would also include writings from Church Fathers such as Clement of Rome, Polycarp,
and Ignatius since tradition associates these men with the apostles (Clement with Peter and
Polycarp and Ignatius with John).
The other criteria also fail to generate automatically the traditional canon because these
writings, along with works like the Didache, would be included under the criteria of antiquity
since they were written in the first century or (in the case of Ignatius) immediately afterward.
They also pass the criteria of orthodoxy, which becomes a problematic criterion since one must
rely on a tradition to know what orthodoxy is before Scripture can be tested to see if it is
orthodox and true to the faith handed down from the apostles.
In the second century the heretic Marcion accepted only the Gospel of Luke and some of
Paul’s letters because he believed only these writings were “orthodox”. Tertullian attacked
Marcion’s canon but not through any appeal to a widely recognized canon from which Marcion
had deviated.— McDonald says of Tertullian, “Nowhere in his extant writings, however, do we
find any specific listing or identification of precisely what was in Tetrullian’s Old Testament or
New Testament.”— According to Bruce,
Where the interpretation of the Bible was at issue, there was a tendency to maintain that only the catholic church had the
right to interpret it, because the Bible was the church’s book; but in the Marcionite controversy an answer had to be given
to the more fundamental question: What is the Bible?. . . If they had not given much thought to the limits of holy writ
previously, they had to pay serious attention to the question now.—
That leaves us with the criteria of “catholicity” or “universal reception by the Church”. Robert
Godfrey says, “The self authenticating character of the canon is demonstrated by the remarkable
unanimity reached by the people of God on the canon.”— First, even if the canon had been
universally accepted in the early Church, it is inconsistent for Protestants to adopt this tradition
from that time period but not others that were universally accepted like the Real Presence of
Christ in the Eucharist (see chapter 8), baptismal regeneration (see chapter 9), and the possibility
of losing salvation (see chapter 12).
But as we’ve already seen, there was no universal reception of today’s canon among believers
in the first few centuries of Christian history. Such a consensus only later grew out of the
authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church. According to McDonald, “The notion of a closed
New Testament canon was not a second-century development in the early church, and there were
still considerable differences of opinion about what should comprise that canon even in the
fourth and fifth centuries.”— Craig Allert agrees and also notes that “this has direct implications
for the argument that the early church appealed to the Bible and the Bible alone for its doctrine:
one cannot properly speak of a Bible in the first several centuries of the church’s existence.”—
Those who merely rely on the Church’s acceptance of the canon also have no reason to say the
canon is infallible if the Church that promulgated the canon (in their eyes) was not infallible.
Some Protestants attempt to do this, but before we examine their arguments we should address
one other way to justify the canon apart from the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.
Self-Authenticating Criteria
Calvin said, “Scripture indeed is self-authenticated; hence it is not right to subject it to proof and
reasoning.” But how is Scripture self-authenticated? Calvin explains:
How shall we be persuaded that it came from God without recurring to a decree of the church? It is just the same as if it
were asked, how shall we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Scripture bears
upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black do of their color, sweet and bitter of their taste.—
For some Protestants, Scripture is capable of authenticating itself through a mixture of subjective
criteria (such as the witness of the Holy Spirit) and objective criteria (such as the written and
historical elements associated with Scripture). One recent attempt to justify a self-authenticating
canon can be found in Kruger’s book Canon Revisited. In chapter 3 Kruger proposes a model for
the canon that would “let the canon have a voice in its own authentication.”—
Kruger does not mean we should merely accept the Bible’s claim to be the word of God (a
claim that, by the way, many books of the Bible do not make for themselves). Instead he says,
“A self-authenticating canon is not just a canon that claims to have authority, nor is it simply a
canon that bears internal evidence of authority, but one that guides and determines how that
authority is to be established.”— For Kruger, the canon authenticates itself through divine
providence (God allows some books to remain in existence to be authenticated and others to be
lost), divine qualities (beauty, efficacy, and harmony), and divine confirmation through the
witness of the Holy Spirit.
First, the witness of the Holy Spirit would reliably establish the canon of Scripture if the Holy
Spirit chose to give such revelations to individuals. However, we’ve shown that the Bible does
not promise this kind of revelation will be given to individuals and so it cannot serve as an
alternative foundation for the New Testament canon. However, Kruger uses an analogy to argue
that if these criteria are combined, they can authenticate God’s revelation. He asks, “If the
created world (general revelation) is able to speak clearly that it is from God, then how much
more so would the canon of scripture (special revelation) speak clearly that it is from God?”—
In other words, the world authenticates the fact that it has a divine author because it contains
divine qualities (beauty, harmony, efficacy) that we are able to recognize with help from the
Holy Spirit. Why can’t the books of the Bible authenticate themselves in a similar way?
The reason is that the conclusion that God is the author of creation is not reached merely
because the world is beautiful or harmonious. Instead, the fact that an orderly universe exists at
all instead of nothing demands an explanation that only a necessary being like God could
provide. The Scripture verses that show we can recognize God through his creation, such as
Romans 1:20 and Psalm 19:1, do not refer to the beauty of creation testifying to God. They
instead refer to God’s power being displayed in his mighty craft, or they speak of effects that
only an all-powerful God could create.
The same is not true for the Bible and our understanding that it has a divine author. Unlike the
Qur’an, the Bible never claims to be something that only God could create.— While the Bible
does contain beautiful prose and gripping stories, so do many other ancient and modern pieces of
sacred and secular literature. Perhaps that’s why Kruger says canonicity also requires works to
have apostolic origins and reception in the early Church, but we’ve seen the limits of applying
the criteria of apostolicity and catholicity on their own toward determining the canon.
Indeed, Kruger’s claim that the canon of Scripture “speaks more clearly” that it is from God
than the natural world does is patently false. While the early Church unanimously agreed that
God created the entire world (even in the face of Gnostic heretics who thought otherwise), they
did not possess a similar agreement over the canon of Scripture. Instead, the Church intervened
and settled this disagreement, a fact that some Protestant apologists admit when they construct
their justification of the New Testament canon.
Fallible Criteria
In The Shape of Sola Scriptura, Keith Mathison admits that the kind of arguments we’ve just
considered present a “devastating criticism” toward those who try to create a canon of Scripture
from Scripture alone. He says those who attempt this task “can say that only scripture is
authoritative, but they can’t say with any authority exactly what scripture is. Any attempt to
authoritatively define a canon, or table of contents, is automatically a denial of solo scriptura.”—
Mathison thinks that his understanding of sola scriptura, which gives some authority to
tradition (as opposed to solo scriptura), is immune to this devastating criticism. However, this
immunity comes at a price because Mathison admits that while he recognizes tradition has
authority when determining doctrine and practice, it does not have infallible authority over those
areas, and so traditions could be mistaken. Mathison isn’t concerned, though, because “it is
logically and theologically possible for any fallible individual or church to make an inerrant [i.e.,
true] statement. The point is this: the fallibility of the church does not mean she must always err,
it only means she can err [emphasis in original].”- In other words, the Church gave us the
canon, but that doesn’t mean the Church is infallible, because even fallible entities can make
correct decisions (or “a broken clock is right twice a day”).
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