As the New Testament was being written...how were the books selected for the canon?

As the New Testament was being written...how were the books selected for the canon?

This is an interesting and important question. Especially as we head into the "specials on Jesus and the Bible season" on Discovery, History Channel and the like. Good TV...but often bad or at least, less than truthful, history.

Well, this is a big topic, but here are the three primary criteria that were used to distinguish between which writings would or wouldn't become Bible.

1) Apostolicity – it was written by an Apostle or an associate of an Apostle (cf. Mark with Peter)

2) Orthodoxy – it conforms to the teachings / theology of the Apostles. (BTW Constantine had nothing to do with the selection of the biblical books. He convened the council of Nicaea in 325 - but that dealt with relationship of Jesus the son to the father).

3) Catholicity (or Universality) – accepted by churches throughout the region.

As Wallace et al conclude in their excellent book, Reinventing Jesus, “Eventually, three kinds of literature were decisively rejected as non-canonical: (1) those that were obvious forgeries (2) those that were late productions (2nd century or later) and (3) those that did not Conform to the orthodoxy of the core books already known to be authentic.”(149)

Regarding (2), NT scholar Darrell Bock reminds us “Orthodoxy is not the product of third-century theologians. Those theologians certainly developed and honed traditional teaching. They gave flesh to the bones and structure to the basic ideas. However, the core of ideas they worked with and reflected in their confessions can be found in the faith’s earliest works. These works embraced what the apostles passed on. The works that we find in the New Testament also testify to this faith. That is why they were recognized as special sources for this teaching, even seen as being inspired by God."(The Missing Gospels, p.213)

Conclusion. This wasn't a power play and this process was well thought out--though it took time. Remember this is in an Oral culture before the Printing press is invented. We know that 21 of the 27 NT writings were functioning authoritatively by 180 AD and the 4 Gospels and the major letters of Paul were in place around AD 130.

Jesus and Pagan Mythology

One of the more common attacks on the historical Jesus making the Internet rounds these days is that Christianity borrowed from pagan religions / mythology.

Now, this was a popular argument around the turn of the 20th century, but has been all but abandoned by scholars today. But that does not keep this objection from making the rounds and finding its way into freshman seminars in college.

Here is a good article which discusses it--Jesus and Pagan Mythology--and also the chapter by noted historian Edwin M. Yamauchi in The Case for the Real Jesus.

Is the God of the Old Testament a Moral Monster?

That is a question that gets raised by a lot of the New Athiests. And there is probably no more passionate defender of atheism than Richard Dawkins of Oxford University.

Here are his devotional thoughts on the God of the Old Testamet:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Hey...Richard...tell us how you really feel.

What can / should a Christian say in response to this?

First, Christians recognize that the God of the OT is the God of the NT--they are one and the same. So however we answer this, we can't right the OT off.

Second, We live in a fallen, broken world; God did not do this to us or intend this for us, humanity did this to ourselves by rejecting God. This is important because God used Israel (a deeply flawed people just like everyone else in the Ancient Near East) to be a force for good in the world...but Israel was not God's ideal community. He worked with fallen people in a very violent society to help show a better way and prepare the way for the messiah.

Now, none of these take away the bite of the passages that seem to advocate genocide in the OT. But they help us better appreciate the situation.

Dr. Paul Copan has written a thoughtful article engaging this issue called Is Yahweh a Moral Monster? The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics

It is well worth a read. He also deals with issues like this in That's Just Your Interpretation

Thinking like Non-Christians?

“Our churches are filled with people who are spiritually born again, but who still think like non-Christians.”—William Lane Craig

According to recent polls and surveys...this seems accurate. It is critical for the vitality and health of the church for us all to engage God and our world with our minds. That is a common and biblical command:

Luke 10:27 And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

Romans 12:1-2 "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

1 Corinthians 10:31 "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

This will not just happen. It will require us to arrange our lives around Scripture and Community. We need times of quiet, times of study and solitude to renew our minds so that we can grow and engage our world with the eternal kind of life that Jesus offers.

A great place to begin this journey is by reading good books like The God Question: An Invitation to a Life of Meaning by JP Moreland.

What was Jesus like as a child?

“Western culture is a Jesus-haunted culture, and yet one that is largely biblically illiterate. Almost anything can pass for knowledge of Jesus and early Christianity in such a culture.”—Ben Witherington

Have you ever wondered what Jesus was like as a little boy? The New Testament covers Jesus’ birth, but then skips ahead to when he is 12 years old in the temple sitting with the teachers (cf. Luke 2:42-51). What about all the years in between?

Enter the lost gospels. These writings, for various reasons, tried to fill in the gaps about two periods of Jesus’ life—his childhood and the three days between his death and resurrection.

Here are two passages from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas about his childhood (judge for yourself if they ring true):

Now the son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Joseph; and he took a willow branch and scattered the water that Jesus had gathered. Jesus was irritated when he saw what had happened, and said to him: “You unrighteous, irreverent idiot! What did the pools of water do to harm you? See, now you also will be withered like a tree, and you will never bear leaves or root or fruit.” Immediately that child was completely withered. Jesus left and returned to Joseph’s house. But the parents of the withered child carried him away, morning his lost youth. They brought him to Joseph and began to accuse him, “What kind of child do you have who does such things?”

Evidently Jesus didn’t play nice with the other children! Here is another interesting snap shot of Jesus’ childhood:

Somewhat later he has going through the village, and a child ran up and banged into his shoulder. Jesus was aggravated and said to him, “You will go no further on your way.” And right away the child fell down and died...The parents of the dead child came to Joseph and blamed him, saying “Since you have such a child you cannot live with us in the village. Or teach him to bless and not curse—for he is killing our children!”*

One thing is clear, “Don’t mess with Jesus!”

Anyone who has read the NT can easily distinguish the flavors of these writings. These 'accounts' are far too late to offer us anything historically solid. The Gospels and the other writings of the NT are the best and most accurate sources of knowledge about Jesus.

For more background substantiating the accuracy of the NT message, composition, and transmission, see the excellent book Reinventing Jesus by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, & Daniel B. Wallace

*(Quoted From) Infancy Gospel of Thomas ch. 3 in Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 58.

Secrets of the Bible???

I was getting a cup of coffee at my local Barnes and Noble yesterday and came across a special magazine issue on "Secrets of the Bible" by US News and World Report. Here is an excerpt from the back:

"...But even though it has been read, interpreted, analyzed, and dissected countless times, there are still puzzling omissions, murky passages, and, yes, mysteries to the Bible's origins and composition. Now Secrets of the Bible delves into these untold tales to reveal the latest theories and insights from renowned scholars...."

Now I love a good mystery....but these magazines seldom tell the whole story or give a "balanced" treatment of the issues (just look at the sampling of scholars interviewed). Now I am not saying they shouldn't be interviewed...but where are the scholars, of the the same caliber and credentials, who argue for the Bible's accuracy, historical reliability, etc.? (contrary to popular opinion, they do exist). Christian faith is not blind and we have nothing to fear from searching for the truth. Hearty discussion is good.

So, I want to recommend a full-color, short book that addresses the question of how we got the Bible. This is done by a leading NT scholar (Dr. Clint Arnold) and the images of ancient texts and other artifacts are simply amazing. In How We Got the Bible: A Visual Journey you will explore:

How did the Bible come to be?

How has it been passed down to us through the ages?

Is it still trustworthy and relevant after all these years?

"The Bible is the bestselling book of all time and the basis of faith for billions of people around the world. Encompassing the fields of archaeology, biblical studies, and history, the story of how the Bible has come to us today is a fascinating one. It is told here, accompanied by beautiful full-color photographs and illustrations."

Which Jesus?

Tis the season for alternative Christianities, missing gospels, and conspiracy theories. We will talk more about that soon. But here is a quote to get the ball rolling:

“Students of Jesus today are faced with a multitude of options, ranging from the traditional Jesus who was Savior, Lord, and founder of the church, to a Jesus who was considerably different—a Jesus who was a sage, a religious genius or social revolutionary. These latter three portraits though clearly drawing their energies from live wires in the Gospels, leave us with a Jesus who is not big enough to explain his crucifixion, his following, or development of the Church. If we today are going to be honest about Jesus, we have to choose a Jesus who satisfies all the evidence historians have observed and who will also explain why it is that so many people have found him to be so wonderful that they attend churches every week to worship him.”—Scot McKnight

Check out The Case for Christ DVD to begin exploring these issues.

Truth....Not Always Comfortable

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair”—C.S. Lewis

Not everything that is comfortable is true. Moreover, comfort is no safe indicator of truth. In fact; if we are never made uncomfortable, then we may be living under the illusion that we are the final arbiters / creators of reality (not a safe place to be because we are finite / fallen humans). But someday...maybe not today, nor tomorrow...but someday, we will all bump up against the truth. And if we 'make it up' - then on a really bad day, we will be unable to convince ourselves otherwise, because we cannot lie to ourselves forever.

Thought about truth lately? Take a listen to Os Guinness' talk Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype, and Spin

The New Testament...Is it Historically Untrustworthy?

One of the claims repeatedly trumpeted in the pages of the New Atheists' books is that the New Testament (and the Bible for that matter) is untrustworthy. But there is at least one big problem with this claim--as Dr. Doug Groothuis notes--"The new atheists reject the New Testament as historically untrustworthy chiefly because of its antiquity and its miracle claims. However, in savaging the New Testament, these writers almost never engage the best conservative New Testament scholars."

As I have read the New Atheists, this observation is valid. They have not done their homework. To read more about this, see the rest of of Groothuis's article, click here.

Has the New Testament Text Been Corrupted?

Welcome to part 2 of our discussion on the reliability of the NT (if you missed last week’s blog, check it out). To begin with, you need to know that none of the original manuscripts of either the Old or New Testaments exist—all that remain are imperfect copies. But this is no different than any other ancient document or classical writer (e.g., Greek or Latin literature). We use reliable copies in our daily lives all of the time (e.g., clocks and yard sticks). In fact, after last week’s blog, we learned that we have far more than any other ancient document to work with.

Now the million dollar question: do we have absolute, 100%, “bomb-proof,” mathematical certainty what the correct reading of the original text of the NT is? The answer to this question is no, we do not. Does that mean we are thrown into utter skepticism regarding the reading of the original New Testament text? Not at all. Here is why. Ehrman in his book Misquoting Jesus claims that there are 400,000 textual errors / textual variants in the NT (i.e., differences between the texts). This claim sounds daunting and scary considering there are only about 140,000 words in the Greek NT. What should we say to this? When textual critic Dan Wallace teaches on this in topic in popular settings, he makes the initial statement that “99% of the textual variants make no difference at all” (Spelling and non-sense errors comprise the vast majority of these; BTW, when I was in graduate school we did some textual criticism exercises, and it was remarkable how easy it was—even for novices—to pick out most of these issues). This means that less than 4000 places (out of the original 400,000 variants) have any legitimate bearing on the translation of the text. So what kind of errors are these? Wallace categorizes them into 4 kinds; I will mention these and leave you to some homework to flesh out the particulars.

Watch Dr. Wallace discuss these issues: http://jesusfactorfiction.com/answer.php?new_testament

1. Spelling differences (the great majority of these variants are spelling 70-80%)
2. Minor differences that involve synonyms or do not affect translation (Greek is an inflected language, so you can say the same thing with several different constructions)
3. Meaningful but not viable differences (e.g., 1 Thess. 2:9 – a late medieval manuscript says “gospel of Christ” instead of “gospel of God,” meaningful difference but not viable because there is little chance one scribe got it right much later and all other scribes got it wrong).
4. Meaningful and viable differences (Less than 1% of variants) Meaningful here is not “earth-shattering” like Jesus was a liar or something…almost all are minor variations (cf. Rom. 5:1 “let us have peace with God” or “We have peace with God” and Mark 9:29 “Casting out demons by “prayer and fasting” or just “prayer”?)

It is important to remember that the reason we have so many variants is because we have so many manuscripts (again a good problem to have!). So when all is said and done, Scholars have achieved a 99.5% copying accuracy of the New Testament (and the remaining issues all have finite options and none of these affect any central doctrine or issue). You can have confidence that what was written then is what we have now—whether you accept the message contained therein is up to.

C.S. Lewis Society Blog and Misquoting Jesus

Welcome to the C.S. Lewis Society Blog. As a team we will be posting weekly blogs that will address or highlight key issues in Christian apologetics and Intelligent Design. Feel free to comment on these posts. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, we encourage you to engage these issues / topics openly and honestly.

It has become fashionable as of late to make provocative claims concerning the origins of Christianity. Take the Da Vinci Code and the so called “missing gospels” (e.g., Gospel of Judas) as exhibits A and B. But recently, a book questioning the reliability of the New Testament has become a best seller, Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who changed the Bible and Why. What makes this interesting is that this book is basically a book on Textual Criticism written for a popular audience. Now Ehrman, who is chair of Religious Studies at UNC, is a well respected textual critic, and so many are being influenced by his book and his controversial claims. Here is just one of them:

“The more I studied the manuscript tradition of the New Testament, the more I realized just how radically the text had been altered over the years at the hands of Scribes….It would be wrong…to say—as people sometimes do—that changes on our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them” (Misquoting Jesus, 207).

Now this raises some good questions because few things are as central to Christianity as whether or not the Bible–as we have it today–has been reliably copied. Ehrman’s claims have not gone unanswered. Fellow Textual Critic Dan Wallace, whose Greek grammar text book is used at 2/3 of the schools that teach Intermediate Greek (including Yale, Princeton, and Cambridge) and who is professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, has responded at the popular level to Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. (FYI, these two scholars will be debating one another on the textual reliability of the NT on April 4-5 in New Orleans at the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum).

It really comes down to two issues: (1) do we have an adequate amount of manuscripts to work with in order to recover the original writings, and (2) is what was written then, what we have now? We will briefly speak to (1) today and address (2) next time. Concerning (1), Wallace notes:
“The wealth of material that is available for determining the wording of the original New Testament is staggering: more than fifty-seven hundred Greek New Testament manuscripts, as many as twenty thousand versions, and more than one million quotations by patristic writers. In comparison with the average ancient Greek author, the New Testament copies are well over a thousand times more plentiful. If the average-sized manuscript were two and one-half inches thick, all the copies of the works of an average Greek author would stack up four feet high, while the copies of the New Testament would stack up to over a mile high! This is indeed an embarrassment of riches” (Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code And Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You, 82).

Furthermore, Wallace observes that, “We have ample data to work with, enabling us to reconstruct the wording of the original New Testament in virtually every place. And where there are doubts, there is still manuscript testimony” (Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ, 49).

So concerning (1) and contrary to what one might be led to believe reading Misquoting Jesus, Wallace represents what is the majority opinion among NT textual critics—there is plenty to work with and a significant number of these manuscripts are early. But whether these texts have been corrupted over time is what we will look at next week.
Now, I simply included the conclusions. I will leave it to you examine the evidence for yourself.

Here are some places to start:
- Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ by Darrell L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace
- Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code And Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You by Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace.
- Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus by Timothy Paul Jones
- The Case for the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel- Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts
-Daniel Wallace’s Blog on Textual Issues