Some time back, I wrote an article for our local church Magazine, the messenger. Sadly, I was limited for space, but here is the unamended article I originally wrote before I had to pare it down for publication.
“All Scripture is inspired of
God” reads a verse of the NT, according to one translation. Yet it’s a fact
that the Bible is a compilation of 66 different books, and neither Paul nor
anyone else gives a checklist of what ought to be in it. later on , though , several different people gave us a list of what was in ~their~ Bible.
Take a look at the following:
AD200 (Muratorian) AD250
(Origen) AD300 (Eusebius) AD400(Carthage)
4 Gospels 4 Gospels 4 Gospels 4 Gospels
Acts Acts Acts Acts
Paul's Epistles Paul's Epistles Paul's Epistles Paul's Epistles
James Hebrews
1&2 John 1Peter 1Peter James
1&2 Peter 1&2 Peter.
Jude 1 John 1 John 1, 2, 3 John
Revelation (John) Rev.( John ) Rev (John) Jude
Revelation (Peter) Revelation
( John)
Wisdom of Solomon
These lists reveal what
certain people were using as a ‘New Testament’, at different times and in
different places.
The Muratorian fragment, from
Rome, is the earliest collection of Christian scriptures we know. Yet it
contains books we don’t use in our modern Bible. It is important to realise
that some may claim that the original document is incomplete, with a fragment
missing , that there are still inclusions to the canon that we don’t have
today.
Origen and Eusebius were both
clerics, each one used a Bible that was fairly consistent with the other – yet
each one mentions several other works on a separate list. Origen mentions
Hebrews and James, together with the Didache and the Shepherd Hermas, among
others. Eusebius mentions the same books, expresses his doubts on some, but specifically
excludes Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache from his list, and from public
reading. Finally, in the Council of Carthage ( AD 400), we see a list that is
exactly like our modern new Testament. Some may wonder why this is so, and what
caused all these changes.
The answer lays it the fact
that Christianity spread literally by word of mouth at first. Only when the
Apostles were old was anything of Christ’s life written down. The letters from
the Apostles to various churches and individuals were also kept, as they were a
link to the early church founders.
But different people
cherished different things. James and Jude were very pro Jewish – they were
Jews themselves, after all! Yet the
early Church went through a phase when they wanted to be seen as different -
Christians, as opposed to being just another sect of Judaism. So, for a time,
James and Jude were out of favour. James kept pointing people back to Moses,
and quoting the OT – whereas Christians wanted to read books that talked more
about Jesus. So, for a while, James was ignored by Christians until the Early
church began to feel more comfortable about the Jewishness of Jesus, their
Saviour.
So, what criteria did the
Church use to establish whether a book belonged in the Canon? None of the
Apostles ever gave us a list; however, some of the Apostles do quote from books
we consider Apocryphal today. Jude quotes from The Assumption of Moses in the
passage where he talks about the Archangel Michael, and Peter quotes from a
book called ‘The book of Enoch’. When we read in the Bible of Jannes and
Jambres, we may wonder who these people are, for they are not mentioned in
Exodus. And indeed, they are not. However, they are mentioned in an apocryphal
work, obviously known in the Apostles time, but excluded from our canon.
It was down to a few things -
1) Was it a work of the right era - Old Testament or Apostolic in origin?
The
OT had always been regarded as the bedrock of the Hebrew tradition, but these
new gospels and epistles were looked at more closely. Although Luke and Mark
were not Apostles themselves, their work was known from the earliest years of
the church. Mark and Luke were contemporaries of Christ, so they were in. The
Gospel of Thomas for example, was supposed to be written by Thomas, but quite
unknown in the first 200 years after Christ. This made it suspect.
2)
Was it hallowed
by usage?
If
a book had been widely used by many separate Christian communities, both to explain their faith to outsiders and for usage in worship as part of a service, it stood in
a books favour. The Coptic , or Egyptian church still clings to the Book of
Enoch today , but the Western Church , drawn from many places outside Africa
rejects Enoch , even though it was quoted by an Apostle, simply because the
Jewish community rejected it themselves, eventually.
It
is worth noting that the Jews rejected a lot of earlier work because it was in
Greek – by stating that they accepted only Hebrew writings, they cut the ground
from under the Christians who wanted to argue that the Gospels were inspired
also. The Jews lost Tobit and an awful lot more from the Septuagint, but
considered the price worth paying. The Catholic Church includes Tobit and many
more in its canon. Again , we find that many Christian communities were using Luke's works to expound and explain their faith , but nobody was using the Gospel of Thomas until much later.
3)
Did it present a
consistent theological perspective with the books they already had?
Unless
a book could be used to support or enlarge upon the orthodox point of view, it
was likely to be excluded. The gospel of Thomas had Jesus performing miracles as a little child, and this wasn't something that the more established works mentioned, and their theology made it very unlikely to say the least - the church went with a consensus of more trusted sources and excluded Thomas and many others.
Whereas many claim that God
gave us the Bible we have today, we see instead that God gave us a Church. That
church, down the ages, both collected and preserved its sacred texts, gradually
shaping “Scripture” as it went. Today, although the books are all collected together,
it is through translation and explanation of the texts that the Church
continues to shed light on the Word of God. The meanings we give it and the
conclusions we draw today may yet influence future generations in their
thinking.
Good work, very helpful in sorting all this out. I believe we have the bible we are supposed to have in the sovereignty of God including what some would label apocryphal works whether they are or not... Although I do not believe in the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration, "Inspiration" Yes but not exact in many places as I believe God expected us to hear and read the "Spirit" of the Word which gives "life" rather than the "letter" which kills. In quoting scripture; Jesus and the Apostles often widely paraphrased the text without any explanation. I also do not believe God quit speaking at the end of Revelation or you can wrap God up in a nice leather binder with gold edges - God is a little bigger than that and is full well able and is speaking today or else there are many untruthful Christians today; in my opinion... Peace, Dennis Caldwell
ReplyDeleteI would agree with what you say here, Dennis. We must also remember that Jesus and others quoted from the Septuagint - a Greek translation of the books that were originally written in Hebrew.
ReplyDeleteWe then get that translated into English for us. Try doing that on Babel fish and see what happens! there is a big difference between Formal equivalent and Dynamic equivalent when it comes to translations, too. Nor must we forget that the Jews who made the Septuagint included many books that later got taken out .