[08/27/20]
I have spent the last few days reviewing a few articles on the topic of the canon of Scripture, and how it developed. There is this idea out there that somehow this all comes down to some silly effort by the council that Constantine called together, wherein they set out all the books on a table, and in some bit of prayer sought that the Spirit would knock to the floor those which did not belong. But while there may be a thin thread of documentation which leads back to a ninth-century manuscript that was dug up somewhere in the 16th century. But it must be observed that this is the sole text tying the development of the canon to such an event, and for that matter, to the First Council of Nice. It gains traction because it has been quoted by writers contemporary to its discovery, such as Voltaire, and later use by the likes of Dan Brown in his fanciful attempt to undermine faith, but in truth, the theory finds no basis, and the ideas it puts forth are thoroughly out of keeping with character of those who are known to have been involved in these councils. The likes of Athanasius were not of a nature inclined towards such fanciful approaches to understanding God and Truth.
Rather, it is clear that the bulk of the canon was already well established much earlier than the Council of Nice, and its final form not arrived at until the later Council of Carthage. Even with such statements as I have made thus far, I become uncomfortable with the terminology because it leaves man too much in charge. One thing I have much appreciated in the articles I read is the repeated observation that the canon was not, in reality, down to man to determine. At base, the canon was determined by God as He commissioned its writing by men of His choosing, and always under the inspiration and oversight of the Holy Spirit. There is a comment made in the article on this subject at Got Answers.org that deserves capture here. “The human process of collecting the books of the Bible was flawed, but God, in His sovereignty, and despite our ignorance and stubbornness, brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired.” That’s the thing. As with the Councils of the Church, it is easy to get lost and put off by the flawed operation of flawed humanity and suppose the whole work spoiled. But then, to take such a view with any degree of honesty must lead us to consider our own thoughts and efforts in the very same light.
There is something to be said for such an assessment, for it is just such an assessment of our personal worth that will remind us of our humble status before a holy God. But when that assessment leads us to distrust anything and everything, we are left with no Truth at all, and that is a sorrowful place to be. That is not holiness we have arrived at, but nihilism and post-modernism at its worst. It is a hopeless place, and hope, we are given to understand is one of the eternal trio of characteristics that define the Christian. Faith, hope, and love, Paul tells us, are the three – not traits, but gifts – that abide (1Co 13:13). There is a charity of thought which ought also to abide in the Christian, that observes the beliefs of his fellow believers not with a jaundiced and critical eye desirous of identifying every last chink in their worldview and seeking cause to disagree; but rather, seeking to strengthen that which is accurate, to help them build upon it a sound edifice, and to build upon it ourselves that we all might together grow into the fulness of the image of God.
Observe Paul’s words here, although they perhaps belong farther along in this last effort of mine. “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13). There is so much packed into that passage, but here, I want to focus on what God gave. It was men. It was human agents to pursue the divine agenda. Humanity has been intimately involved in the work of redemption from the outset, and beginning with Adam and continuing right on down to today, that has meant the involvement of flawed agents. But God is sovereign. He was not put off His plan by Adam, and He isn’t put off His plan by you or me. He certainly wasn’t put off His plan by Constantine, or by any Council of the Church. Have men got it wrong on occasion? To be sure! And not merely on occasion. We are fairly adept at getting it wrong. But then, we are not the agents.
There is an old saying in the church, I don’t know just how old, that whom God sends He equips. We may hear it stated somewhat differently as the idea that what God requires of us, He empowers us to achieve. For many, such an understanding undergirds efforts to overcome sin. I suppose it must be said that for others, such an understanding may very well do little more than produce an overwhelming sense of guilt. But I wander from my point. The key of that passage from Paul lies in the first few words. “And He gave some…”. These were not men who chose to promulgate a religion. They are men whom God chose to guide the religion He Himself promulgated. That most certainly encompasses those whom God gave the task of producing the texts of Scripture. It just as certainly encompasses those to whom fell the task of discerning those texts which truly represented divine revelation.
Being a work involving flawed humanity, God wisely saw to it that the work was not that of an individual, for a flawed individual can readily talk himself into falsity. But, “A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel” (Pr 1:5). “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors they succeed” (Pr 15:22). These may not seem to speak directly to the idea of gathering together a group of men to establish the truth and the validity of this text or that. But we might observe that from the outset, we have the idea in legal matters, that a fact is established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. We have the choice of Jesus to establish a council of sorts in the multiplicity of Apostles. We see it again in the choice to incorporate not one, but four accounts of the ministry of Christ. The idea, then, that a council might be called to resolve some difficult disagreement of understanding is hardly novel. It is the path set out by God even from the time of Moses. Moses may have been the singular prophet of his day, but he was not left alone. He tried it that way for a season, but wisdom dictated that he pull together a team to aid him in the work of guiding Israel. That’s a slightly different example and purpose, but the same concept applied.
[08/28/20]
Coming back to the discerning of the canon of Scripture, which I think captures the situation more properly than to suggest the development of Scripture, it was indeed not the product of one man’s mind, nor even of one council’s collected judgment. As regards the texts of the Old Testament, the Church has, for the most part, followed the decisions reached by her Jewish forebears. There is debate about the inclusion of the texts that compose the Apocrypha, but their proper classification as interesting and potentially useful religious writings that remain short of being divinely inspired was reached long before there was a Church. While we will find early writers of the Church, including Augustine, quoting from those texts, that in itself does not render them Scripture, only widely known and accepted as having some value. I would put it on a similar level to our making reference to the writing of the early writers of the Church. We do not, in studying and even quoting such texts, suggest in any way that they are Scripture, any more than my occasional quotes of articles, encyclopedias, or commentaries raises them to such a level.
We could ask, then, how it is that the Jewish theologians arrived at their conclusions, because it really shouldn’t suffice to know they did otherwise. The same must eventually be said in regard to the New Testament canon as well, but for now, we’ll stick with the Old. One aspect that certainly informs the conclusions is that the authorship of these texts was generally known at the time of their reception. The Pentateuch, or Law, was given through Moses. The original recipients knew this rather conclusively, and knew Moses for what he was, a uniquely endowed prophet of God. The writings of the Prophets came from identified, known sources, prophets of renown and evident authenticity. The Writings are primarily gathered from significant sources. The Psalms are gathered from David, Solomon, Moses, Asaph, along with other Levitical writers. Other writings reflect the wisdom of Solomon. The general point here is that the legitimacy of the writings and their writer were readily established, and the godliness of those writers known. The same cannot always be said for the texts of the Apocrypha.
There is added to this a degree of clear authorization for the writings. Moses is commanded to write what he wrote. The prophets are called upon to preserve what they have prophesied, and in the case of Jeremiah, it must be done repeatedly because the first copy he produced was destroyed by those who did not want to hear it. The records of the kingdom are preserved yes, one presumes by royal decree, but also as a clear record of God’s people and as such, of God’s workings.
To clear authorization and familiarity with the authors, add longstanding acceptance. We see in that record the evidence of recovering the written texts from time to time, and upon recovery of said texts, of seeing to it that all and sundry were reacquainted with its words. Efforts are undertaken to preserve the same as the Word of God to His people for future generations, and to ensure that His people do not forget.
Eventually, it seems, official boundaries for inclusion were set up. Moses and Ezra become the endcaps, if you will. Something written prior to Moses will not count (although Job does, so I’m not quite clear how that worked). Something later than Ezra will not count, as we find him acting to preserve and promulgate the Law after the return from Babylonian exile. That, I should note, most clearly precludes the three books of Maccabees. Understand that this was no arbitrary decision. Neither was it simply their esteem for these two men. Rather, the text itself advertises the limits. Moses is the first we find commanded to put these things in writing. Ezra likewise acts in response to divine command. Then falls the silent period, when no prophet was heard in Israel. It rather stands to reason that if no prophet was heard, no writing could bear the authority of the prophetic hand directed by God.
I think we must add one further criteria, and that is consistency. I cannot say with certainty whether such a concern guided the Jewish theologians in defining the texts of Scripture, but it certainly was a concern for the Christian theologians who followed after. When dealing with God Who Is Truth, it simply will not do to have variant theologies taught in diverse texts laying claim to divine revelation. Truth does not contradict. The laws of mathematics do not bend and change to suit the fads and feelings of man. Neither does God. If these texts are God revealing Himself, they must adhere and present a singular and consistent view of Who God Is, and what He requires of us.
As concerns the Old Testament canon, then, it rests on foundations and determinations rendered well before there was a Church to be concerned about canon. The New Testament, on the other hand, was a matter contemporaneous with the developing Church, as it must be. Here, similar criteria arise. Authorship matters, and while we may debate who wrote what because they didn’t tend to sign their works, apart from certain of the Epistles, they were well enough known to those who first received the works. The authorship of the Gospels, for example, was sufficiently known to those who first received them, quite possibly from the authors themselves. After all, it’s not like these were rolling off the printing press. The Epistles, as we see often enough with Paul’s writings, were carefully signed by the author as evidence of authenticity. It seems clear enough that even then, there were those trying to make bank on the name of the Apostles, as it were; to lend credence to their opinions by laying claim to apostolic authority which did not apply.
[08/29/20]
So, once again, we have the question of how decisions were made as to authenticity. There is, as noted, the evidence of apostolic authorship, either directly or by close and longstanding proximity. Thus, Mark’s Gospel and Luke’s contributions are recognized as bearing the stamp of apostolic approval, if not direct authorship. Jude and James may be a bit more difficult to qualify on these terms. The James whose epistle is preserved is not James, brother of John, who was executed far too early on to have been writing to the church. Jude is not an apostle or even an associate of the apostles by any record we have available. He is a brother of Jesus. But by the testimony of the gospels, that’s not necessarily saying much, is it? Then we have Hebrews, about which it seems there has never been any clarity as to its author. But one presumes the church that first received that epistle was well aware of its source. So, perhaps the article that notes this criteria was primarily applied in the negative, rather than as a necessary positive is correct.
What else plays into the decision? Again, there is the sense of consistency as to doctrine, and on that basis, certainly, James runs into difficulty. It is not easy to see how his message corresponds to Paul’s harmoniously, and even the likes of Martin Luther had doubts. But it is not impossible to harmonize the two, only challenging. It requires more than a surface reading. One aspect that doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention in the present is the sense of holiness and purity; which is to say, the way in which the writings that make of the New Testament – and the Old, for that matter – reflect God’s nature, the infusion of the Holy Spirit into their composition. These are not expressions of mere worldly wisdom. They are not simply the best philosophical developments available in their day. They are not, as we must insist, really dependent upon human agency for their value whatsoever. Yes, God chose to use these men to compose His revealed Word. And yes, we can even go so far as to say that those men who sought to establish and safeguard the canon of Scripture were also men whom God chose for that purpose. The same Holy Spirit Who oversaw the composition of the texts at their origins has also overseen the process of their preservation and their recognition.
One thing that can be missed is how early the NT canon was largely established. Those who chase it back to the Council of Nice miss the fact that most of the work was already done prior to that council. We have attempts at establishing the canon dating back much farther, to about 170 AD, which is really not so very long after the advent and ministry of our Lord. Compare it to efforts to recognize source documents related to the formation of American governance, for example, or to events surrounding the First or Second Great Awakening. All of these are events much farther in the past than the events of Christ’s life would have been and 170 AD, and yet we have little if any doubt as to the authenticity of documents related to these periods. I don’t suppose there’s nearly the effort or inclination to introduce false documents, although false histories are certainly being presented in support of this or that cause. That being the case, events are not so dissimilar after all.
But where falsehood seeks an in, we are as yet close enough to events to discern the legitimate with certainty if we are inclined to pursue the matter. We can still arrive at the source material and recognize it as such. For those seeking to recognize the valid texts of Scripture, there would have been certain benefits which do not really apply today. The cost of producing written material would itself have been something of a countervailing pressure, I should think. That is to say, unlike the cheap and easy world of the Internet, where anybody with a few bucks and an inclination can promulgate whatever message happens to catch their fancy, producing written works was both time consuming and costly. Delivery to a potential readership was far more challenging. Clearly that did not entirely dissuade those who would promote their ideas under the guise of Christianity, but it at least presented a limiting factor.
I should also note that not every text excluded from being accounted Scripture was excluded as heretical. This was no more the case then than it would be today. We don’t reject the writings of Clement or Polycarp out of hand. We simply recognize that they are not inerrant Scripture. They have value, just not so high a value as that.
The biggest challenge for us ought not to be the establishment of such a canon, for this was done by men of good faith, guided by the Spirit, and much closer to the roots of faith than we are in our late age. Again, let me stress that the decision did not come down to whether books fell off a table or not. It was the considered work of many considerate men, over a lengthy period, and with much counsel. For us, perhaps the remaining question is on what basis is it declared closed? How do we assure ourselves that we are not erring as the Jews before us by failing to note a new work of God unfolding?
This is the big question, I think, from the charismatic side of the Church. How can you say that God has ceased speaking to His people? Does He not say in this Word that He will by no means do anything without first informing His prophets? Look. We can write that off to bad or lazy exegesis, and quite probably be correct about that. But if that is our sole answer, then we really don’t have an answer. We do know that there was that long period stretching from Ezra, or Malachi, depending how you choose to measure it, right through to John the Baptist when no news was forthcoming from on high. God had said what He intended to say and that was that. Mind you, He had left clear pointers to coming events, and even left the message that another Prophet would arise to speak again. But somewhere along the way, it seems His people decided that what they had was it. Yes, they await a Messiah, but it seems a rather half-hearted affair. And when He came, it was almost inevitable really that they would fail to take note of Him and accept Him.
Who’s to say that we aren’t at risk of the same failure? We, too, are left with a pointer to later events when He shall return. But then, He also says that when He returns there will be no room left for doubt. All will see Him. All will know. Some will rejoice. But we do have Jesus’ assurance that He has told us everything the Father purposed for us to be told. Whether or not the author of Hebrews intended us to understand a finality of the development of Scripture in his opening statement, it does stand that in these last days, God has spoken through His Son. The New Testament consists first of exposition of what His Son said and did, and then, through the Epistles, commentary on what that means for us as to how we worship and how we live. We have, too, the rather enigmatic text of Revelation, pointing us, however vaguely, to the final outcome. And there, too, whatever John’s original intent in writing the words, we have this significant warning about adding or removing from what has been written.
I personally find it hard to accept that John is pointing to the whole of Scripture there. After all, so far as we can tell, he had no cause to suppose his vision would become the final book as we order things. But perhaps by the Spirit he actually did. Paul certainly expresses thoughts that indicate he recognized his writings were more than just letters to churches he had planted, more than just replies to correspondence received, and his advice was more than mere opinion. Surely, if the Spirit was inspiring and commissioning these writings, it’s no great stretch to suppose the authors knew His involvement, and sensed, at least, what that must mean for what was being written. How much greater, then, their care in stating God’s will clearly and accurately! How awesome must have been their sense of responsibility. Far from being a thrill and a means of gaining personal recognition, I think it’s quite clear that this was – as it surely ought to be – a most humbling observation, and one inclined to drive the writers to greater depths of prayer.
[08/30/20]
Beyond what efforts went into the discerning of those texts which combined are recognized as holy Scripture, I would add one further evidence of their authenticity and validity, not merely as accurate transcriptions of the originals, but as something of central import to the right beliefs of mankind. That we have a shockingly complete and consistent record of these ancient writings should be accounted a significant endorsement of their valuation across the centuries. It is often observed that no other text of such antiquity, or for that matter of significantly less antiquity, has such a volume of attesting evidence in the form of various copies and fragments of copies still extent. The argument usually made is that if we are willing to accept, say, the works of Plato as accurate renditions when our translations depend on far scantier manuscript evidence, then surely we ought to account the text of the Scriptures as we have it as reliable, for there is a far greater body of manuscript evidence supporting those renditions.
I am inclined to say, however, that the relative significance of Scripture all but demands that there be far greater manuscript evidence. It is well, and affirming that these many manuscripts agree in such great detail as to the original text. No, to the best of our knowledge, we do not possess the originals, the autographs, but what we do possess demonstrates such care in the copying as leaves us more than sufficiently clear on what those autographs contained. Are there differences to be noted? Yes. And most or at least many of our translations make an effort to identify those points of difference. For the most part, we discover that they are of minimal significance to the message. It may be a matter of tense, or a word choice here and there. It may, on occasion, be the question of an added phrase in one copy or another, and in a few cases, we have entire paragraphs that come into question. The chief examples here would be the concluding portion of Mark and the stoning of the adulteress in John. Of those, I suppose the ending of Mark presents the bigger challenge, in that it depicts some practices that would be cause for debate in many churches.
But by and large, whether one inclines to tease out the differences or mostly dismiss them, the impact is limited. Further, as absolutely critical as it is, this being the Word of God, that the text we have before us is indeed accurate to the original, it is far more startling, I think, that we have it at all. Consider again the comparison of Plato, or perhaps Virgil, or some other of the more renowned men of their age. We have a few texts in a few copies, but really, very little else of their writings. Or go back farther. How much remains of the writings of Babylon or of Egypt? Honestly, there’s not a great deal, and much of it, only because it was carved in stone on some lasting monument. But here we have texts going back millennia, in written form, preserved against all odds, really. Considering what Israel went through, and how often she was attacked by surrounding nations, how wondrous that her religious texts remained. How stunning is it that in the sacking of Solomon’s temple, and the scattering of Israel into captivity and exile, that these texts survived?
Think along the history of the Church, and it is similarly marvelous that we have any record of Christianity whatsoever. Israel didn’t want it, and sought to suppress it rather forcefully. Rome didn’t want it, and was even more violent in its suppression. Yet the Church persisted, and her writings in the Scriptures – I have to say, unlike those other writings that we might consider important to understanding her development – were preserved intact, and even multiplied. We see the center of the Church move from period to period, always, it seems, one step ahead of the mayhem that would envelop the previous center. By the time Jerusalem was being overrun by the Moslems, the Church was centered primarily in Rome. When Rome was feeling the heat from invading barbarians, the Church had new seats in North Africa and farther up into Europe. When Africa fell prey to predations, the Church was strong in places like England and Ireland, and when those came to be at risk, she was in Amsterdam, and then the Americas. And always, these texts accompanied, unchanged except as to translation, that the people of God might have access to His Word to them without need of an interpreter – a nation of priests unto God, indeed!
This history amazes me, though I touch on it only in brief, and without the care it really ought to have applied. But in one sense, it ought not to amaze, for it is God’s Word, God’s Church, God’s history that is in view. As such, it should hardly surprise us, I suppose, that God has found reason to act for its preservation. Has He not said? Not one jot or tittle, says our Lord, will pass from the law until all is fulfilled (Mt 5:18). That fulfilling of all, I dare say, awaits His return to judge the nations in righteousness, and the marriage supper of the Lamb.
