Summer in the Systematics – Bibliology (Part Six): The Canonization of the New Testament

Transcript

Summer In the Systematics - Bibliology (Part Six): The Canonization of the New Testament

Okay, welcome back to Summer in the Systematics, our summertime study of Bibliology, the Doctrine of Scripture. If you can believe it, we are six sessions in meaning we have four to go after tonight. Mid-terms will happen next week, so I’ll make sure you get that. You’ll not get any kind of answer key ahead of time and I’ll grade them in the week to follow.

But so far in our study, if you are keeping track, we’ve covered five topics. We’ve covered the authority of the Bible. We’ve covered the inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the Bible, the canonicity of the Bible. And then, last Sunday evening we covered the canonization of the Bible and specifically, the canonization of the Old Testament. Meaning, the history of and the process behind how the 39 books of ancient Hebrew writings which we now call “the Old Testament” came to be formally recognized and defined as such.

Tonight, we’re going to turn to the topic of the canonization of the surprise, surprise, New Testament. And in a manner similar to last week, what we did last Sunday night, we’re going to be looking into the history of and the process behind how the 27 books of ancient Greek writings that we know as the “New Testament” came to be formally recognized and defined as such.

Now, a few basic reminders and definitions as we sort of shove off the dock tonight. First is the reminder that “canonicity” is that inherent quality of Scripture by which it is self-authenticating as having been divinely inspired. Now what’s being said there is that canonicity and inspiration are inextricably intertwined. They are like a hand to a glove. They go together. As we saw from Rene Pache last week, “The canon is the fruit of divine inspiration.” Inspiration is given of God. II Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God” and inspiration, by God, in turn determines canonicity. Men don’t set the canon. Churches don’t prescribe or establish the canon. The canon has been given by God. But as we’ve noted, God has used men to recognize what God has already determined. That certain books are, in fact, canonical. So that’s “canonicity.”

What about “canonization,” our subject for tonight? Well, canonization is a related, but distinct topic. Here’s our definition, I gave this to you last week, of canonization. It’s the process by which an ancient book or writing is recognized as being part of the canon; that is, it’s affirmed as divinely inspired Scripture. So, once again, and I think I went through this last time, the process of canonization, has, as its purpose, the affirmation of the canonicity of texts which are now found in the canon. I’ll say it again, the process of canonization has, as its purpose, the affirmation of the canonicity of the texts which make up the canon. And “the canon,” as Bruce Metzger puts it, is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books.”

We’ll see more about this tonight. We’re going to get more into detail as it relates to the New Testament specifically. So again, tonight we’re looking at the canonization of the New Testament. We’re going to do so according to the following outline and headings.
I’m going to give you the three blanks on your worksheets ahead of time like we’ve been doing lately, so that you can just focus on the content as we get to it. Here are the three blanks for your worksheets. The origins of the New Testament canon, the recognition of the New Testament canon, and the witness to the New Testament canon. I’ll show you those again. The origins of the New Testament canon, the recognition of the New Testament canon, the witness to the New Testament canon.

Let’s start with the first one, the origins of the New Testament canon. Now in the dawning years of Christianity, both before and after the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, when the earliest believers who were known as “the Way” at that time spoke of “the Scripture” they had the Hebrew Bible. That Jewish sacred body of literature in mind. That’s what they thought of when they thought of the Scriptures early on. During Christ’s earthly ministry and during the first years of the church the only Bible the earliest followers of Christ had was the Old Testament. In various places punctuated throughout the New Testament, we see that Jesus’ ministry was dotted with these references to the Hebrew Scriptures. Like in Luke 24:44, “These are My words,” Jesus says, “which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then following Jesus’ ascension, the ministry of the apostles was also guided by and grounded in, initially, the Old Testament. Look at Acts 28:23. It says, “When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening.” But even then, though there are these initial appeals to the Old Testament in the early days of the New, there was this gradual movement in the direction of a new, sacred body of literature. For instance, Jesus says several times in the Sermon on the Mount here in Matthew 5, “You have heard it said,” then He goes on to say what? “But I say” meaning, during Jesus’ ministry here on earth a new canonical authority was already beginning to take shape starting with the teachings of our Lord Himself. Who, when He spoke, we know spoke with authority. Look at Mark 1:22. “They were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority.” Not only that though, but Jesus Himself said to His disciples, with regard to the coming Holy Spirit, in John 16 that “when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.” “He will take of Mine” as in My words, My teaching. The Holy Spirit will take those words and disclose them to Christ’s followers. What we already have here, then, just from a few verses here, is the authority of Jesus’ teaching being affirmed. Authority which pointed to the divine inspiration of what would later be recorded in the four Gospel accounts which, in turn, pointed to the canonicity of those four Gospels. Of course, there was no official list of canonical books at this time, in Jesus’ time because not even all the canonical books had been written by that time. But, as John Sailhamer notes, “The concept of a New Testament canon was already in the air.”


And then there was Paul. Though in some of his cases of evangelism he appealed to the Old Testament like we saw back in Acts 20:8 just now. But even Paul gradually started to shift toward appealing to the words of Jesus for his authority which we see in places like Acts 20, “In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’.” Or I Thessalonians 4:15, “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive,” the rapture passage, one of them, “and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” Or
I Corinthians 11:23, a communion passage, “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you.” Or I Timothy 6:3, a pastoral passage. “If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing.” So, what we’re seeing here is Paul more and more referring to the words of Christ as authoritative, not just going back to the Old Testament. Paul also clearly recognized in his own ministry what the Holy Spirit was moving him to write. What the Holy Spirit was moving him to write was accompanied by God-given authority. I Thessalonians 2:13, “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” We also see Paul showcasing his understanding that what he was saying was authoritative when he writes to these churches to have his letters read publicly in those churches. Like in I Thessalonians 5:27, “I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren.” Or Colossians 4:16, “When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans.” And as we’ve considered already, multiple times in this series, we know that the New Testament authors themselves considered in many cases the writings of other New Testament authors to be authoritative Scripture like we’ve seen in Peter’s reference here to Paul. He says, “regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” He’s calling Paul’s writings, Peter is, scripture.

Now, what we’ve been looking at so far tonight in our run up to the main material here as we consider this concept of the origins of the New Testament canon, or the canonization of the New Testament, we’re looking so far at the internal witness of the New Testament to its own origins and its own development. What Jesus said about His own authority.
What Peter said about Paul’s authority. What we’re going to do next though is look into how the New Testament was recognized and took shape and was understood in the earliest years of church history. That is, in the years that the apostles and biblical authors were passing off the scene and as a new wave of church fathers, and theologians, and historians, was coming on the scene.

But before we make that shift, we can’t leave this topic of the origins of the New Testament without making at least quick reference to when each of the individual books of the New Testament was authored. It’s important for us to do that because tonight’s lesson is very much a historical lesson with many dates, I’m going to throw your way and many timelines I’m going to throw your way and many figures I’m going to throw your way. So, we have to start as we build out that timeline of when the various books of the New Testament were written. Now, this isn’t a New Testament survey class so I’m not going to give you the purpose behind each of the twenty-seven books or the main idea behind each book or the key word behind each book or the key players in each book or the key verses in each book. I’m going to just leave it tonight at the dates for each book. The dating of each book so that we can maintain our sense timeline as we work through this material tonight. As we see the New Testament canon not only being breathed out by God, but recognized by men as it took shape. So here are those dates. I’m going to try to restrain myself and give minimal commentary on each of these, for the sake of time. Matthew, first gospel written 50 A.D., approximately. Mark mid-6os A.D., Luke 60 A.D., John, the gospel of John between 80 and 90 A.D., Acts which we know was sort of an extension of Luke, 60-62 A.D., Romans 56 A.D., I Corinthians 55 A.D., II Corinthians 55-56 A.D., shortly maybe a few months after I Corinthians. Galatians, very early, close to the time of the Jerusalem Council, 50 A.D., Ephesians 60-62 A.D., Philippians and Colossians around the same time, 61-62 A.D. I and II Thessalonians, very early, 51-52 A.D., I Timothy 62-64 A.D., II Timothy 67 A.D., Titus 62-64 A.D., Philemon 61-62 A.D., Hebrews 67-69 A.D., James, I would contend is the oldest book of the Bible, James would be 44-49 A.D., I Peter 64-65 A.D., II Peter 67-68 A.D., I John 90-95 A.D., II John and III John, the same, about 90 - 95 A.D., Jude 68-70 A.D., and then Revelation 95 A.D. Alright, that was a very quick jet tour through the dating of the New Testament. If you have objections or questions, we can talk about them in the south lobby tonight.

So that brings us to the end of the first century. What happened then? The apostle John, the last living apostle writes in 95 A.D. or there abouts, he writes the word “amen” at the very end of Revelation 22. Revelation 22:21 that he had appended at the very end of that book. He writes the word “amen,” he pulls down the other twenty-six copies of the New Testament that were in neat order in his library, he then shovels in the end of Revelation, and voila. That’s the canon. Right? That’s how it happened? No. The New Testament books and letters were written by a variety of different authors on a variety of different dates in a variety of different places for a variety of different purposes. There was no central clearinghouse where these letters were kept. Remember last time in the Old Testament we saw how the Law of Moses was kept near the ark of the covenant and the Ten Commandments were actually kept in the ark of the covenant? Well, that’s not how it happened with the New Testament. There was no center place to deposit everything. Rather, the New Testament letters were slowly distributed and widely circulated. Some of the books were more widely circulated than others. But some of the books were addressed to individual churches or individual groups or individuals. Some of the books that were addressed to individual people, as those books began to become more widely distributed beyond their initial audience, they were read by people that they weren’t initially addressed to. Then that always led to these questions and even debates about, well was this book from God or not? Was this a book that ought to be heeded and obeyed or not? I mean, I’m sure that many of you have heard this narrative that’s been fed to us by the popular media that it wasn’t until the fourth century A.D., maybe the fifth century A.D., the 300s or the 400s, post Constantine, that the church finally settled on and decided which books, books that had been circulating for hundreds of years by then, ought to be in the Bible.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories. National Geographic magazine, History channel, those sorts of things. There are a couple of problems with that line of thinking. First, as we’ve seen already in our Sunday evening studies, the church never did any such thing. The church never could do any such thing. The church didn’t, and the church couldn’t “create the canon” of Scripture. The most the church could do, and did do, was recognized as canonical that which God already breathed out.

Second, the problem is that line of thinking. that the canon didn’t take shape until the fourth century, is completely ignorant of the historical record, the actual historical record. We’re going to spend a lot of time now actually building out that historical record from the earliest centuries of the church, like post-John, the apostle, all the way into the fourth and fifth centuries.

In fact, that’s our second heading on your worksheet there. The recognition of the New Testament canon. So, we’ve looked at how the New Testament authors themselves were cognizant of their own task, in penning the words of Scripture. We’ve looked at when the New Testament writers, we went through it real briefly, wrote their respective New Testament books. Now we’re going to move forward in church history, beyond the times of the biblical authors to the next couple of hundred years. This is going to be a super high-speed tour through church history like a powerboat bouncing off the breakers so buckle up. We’re going to pick it up with Clement of Rome. Clement of Rome, in 95 A.D., wrote an epistle, a letter called I Clement and, in that letter, he refers to Romans, I Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, and Hebrews as Scripture. So, already, 95 A.D. we have this early church father, Clement writing around the same time as the Apostle John you’ll note, who is already a very early witness to at least those books being Scripture. Now, brief aside on Clement of Rome, I believe he’s considered to be third pope by the Roman Catholic church, third or fourth, I forget which one they call him. If you go read I Clement you will see that this man believed in grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and the Roman Catholic church claiming him as one of their own is laughable. I digress.

Next, we get to Ignatius, of Antioch. He was the bishop of Antioch. He wrote seven letters around the year 112 A.D. We’re into the second century now, the early second century on our timeline. In these letters, Ignatius of Antioch quoted from six of Paul’s letters, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, and Philemon. In those letters Ignatius left no doubt as to whether he believed that these letters of Paul were ultimately derived and came from God and should be treated as such.

Next, we come to Papias of Hierapolis and Papias didn’t like picture day. Look at that grumpy look on his face. He was an early church father who wrote his Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord sometime in the 120s A.D. And in that work, Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord, he referred to the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and then he quoted from I Peter, I John, Revelation, and several of the Pauline epistles clearly recognizing them as from God, as Scripture.

Next up is Polycarp, of Smyrna. He was John the apostle’s direct disciple. And in his writings which were dated around the middle of the second century, mid-100s, he quoted from all four Gospels, Acts, most of Paul’s epistles, I Peter, I John, and II John. Next is Justin Martyr. He wrote also in the mid-second century, the mid-100s. His writings include references to what he calls the “the memoirs of the apostles” which is another way of saying, “the Gospels.” He reports on the early church services in the mid-100s where the gospels were being read publicly in church services. Then there’s Theophilus of Antioch in the late second century, around 177 A.D. He argued that the Gospel writers and the apostles were spokesmen for God in the same sense as the ancient Hebrew prophets were. He also regarded the Christian writings of the New Testament as being equal in authority to those of the Old Testament.

We have Irenaeus, of Lyons who ministered in France. And in his work, Against Heresies, which is dated around 180 A.D., we’re just marching down the timeline here, he explicitly distinguished between the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament.” He also used the “canon” in his writings. He called the four Gospels, he called them the “Pillars of the Church” which is in contrast with all the false “gospels,” the spurious gospels like one we’re going to talk about at length tonight.

By the way, one additional important piece of evidence from this time, beyond these men is a fragment called the Muratorian Fragment. Its name comes from an Italian archaeologist who discovered it in 1740. But this fragment is dated to about 170 A.D. and what this fragment has is a list of books that were approved for reading in the church of Rome in the late second century. In other words, this document, this fragment represents an attempt by someone from the late 100s to define and delimit what actually belonged in the canon of Scripture. You can see this document is actually mutilated at the top so there’s actually no references to the gospels of Matthew and Mark here. But it does mention various other, actually each of the other New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and I and II Peter. Those aren’t on this fragment. It’s just a fragment but it does have significance because it represents the earliest datable list of biblical books in the history of the New Testament canon.

All of what we’ve discussed so far and what this historical evidence confirms is that by the middle of the second century, meaning around the 150s, A.D. most Christian leaders, scholars, church leaders had accepted most of what we now know as the New Testament. I’m going to pause here in the 150s not only because I need to take a breath, but because it’s around this point in the historical record that you see a real spike, a real flurry of interest and activity in this matter of which books truly are in the New Testament canon. Over the next 250 years of church history, from 150 onward you’re going to start to see even more focused writing on this topic and more of a concerted effort in this matter of defining the canon, specifically, the New Testament canon.

So why this spike in interest? What was happening around this time that was causing this spike in interest? There were actually a few different factors in play. One was the influence of the incomplete canon that was being promoted by a heretic named Marcion of Sinope. Marcion was a shipbuilder in Sinope, which was in Pontus which was a province of Asia Minor. He migrated to Rome somewhere around between 140-150 A.D. and while in Rome, he came under the influence of a Gnostic named Cerdo. And through the influence of this Cerdo, Marcion began to believe that there was a great discrepancy between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. He found himself unable to reconcile the character of God in the Old Testament and the revelation of God in the New Testament. What he did is he became the first Christian, recorded at least, to openly and publicly reject the Old Testament wholesale. He was Andy Stanley before there was Andy Stanley. He was “unhitching” himself from the Old Testament many many years ago. To measure up his expectations of who God should be, what he did was he tried to create his own “canon,” his own canon of scripture and it was quite truncated. His canon included just one Gospel, Luke, and it included ten epistles of Paul. That was it. That was his canon. Even Luke was not included in full, he chopped out a bunch of the Gospel of Luke where it ever mentioned the Old Testament or Judaism. So that, basically, when he was done with it, Marcion left the Bible in tatters. Who knows, in this photo he might be chopping it up right in front of us. Well, his efforts, Marcion’s efforts led to increased interest by his opponents to accurately define the scope of the canon, to accurately recognize the true canon. His teachings also led to a fiery reaction from the church leaders of his day. Polycarp, who we’ve just looked at called Marcion “the first born of Satan.” Justin Martyr, who we also just looked at said that “By the help of devils he has caused many of every nation to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is the maker of the universe.”

OK, so I mentioned that there were a few different variables that led to this spike of interest and activity in recognizing the canon between 150 and 400 A.D. We just looked at Marcion and his chopped up, truncated canon. Here was another factor, a second factor. During this same timeframe there were a number of non-canonical writings that were being advanced and promoted and circulated as being canonical during this time. This included a number of false writings. The New Testament Apocrypha is what they are known as or Pseudepigrapha which means “false writings.” They were being circulated in a very rapid way during this time. These were fictitious writings. They were often circulated under the name of New Testament figure, a legitimate New Testament figure so as to give the impression of legitimacy, but in fact they were false, and they were counterfeit. These works included the Protoevangelium of James, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of John, the Acts of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Acts of Andrew, the Acts of Thomas.

We don’t have time to go through a summary of each one of those, I don’t want to do you the disservice of having to read all that to you. But I do want to give you a flavor of one of those works just so you have an understanding of what the faithful people of this time were up against, and that’s the gospel of Thomas. Now most scholars believe the Gospel of Thomas was written somewhere around 175-180 A.D. and note, that’s well over a hundred years after any of the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So, this is a very recent document, not ancient, in those terms. This book or this gospel is made up of 114 “logia,” or sayings, of Jesus. But here’s the thing. According to research that’s been done into this document, the Gospel of Thomas, especially when you compare it to the other four canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, more than 50% of the Gospel of Thomas’s content has no connection to events that are recorded in any of the New Testament, let alone the Gospels, the actual Gospels. Meaning, over half of the Gospel of Thomas’s content is original and purely invented and clearly steeped in Gnostic thought that was running rampant during this time.

And not only that, but The Gospel of Thomas is also rife with theological errors and statements that Jesus never would have made. For instance, according to logion 30, says “Where there are three gods,” this is supposed to be the words of Christ by the way. “Where there are three gods, they are divine. Where are there are two or one, I am with that one.” Now I could cite for you scripture after scripture relating to Jesus the Jew, speaking of there being only one God. He never would have stated or affirmed this is, which is tritheism, speaking of there being three gods which is outright heresy.

Or in logion 61, Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am he who exists from the undivided. I was given some of the things of my Father.” That, of course, runs directly contrary to what we learned this morning from Colossians 1:19, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.” Or Colossians 2:9 “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”

Or how about this one, logion 3, “The Kingdom is within you,” again these are supposed to be the words of Christ. “The Kingdom is within you, and it is without you. If you will know yourselves, then you will be known and you will know you are the sons of the Living Father.” “The Kingdom is with you.” That sounds like Star Wars theology. “May the force be with you.” And “if you will know yourselves,” that sounds like this self-focused, navel-gazing, Dr. Phil-inspired hogwash that’s been peddled by shrinks and life coaches for the past several decades.

Or ladies, you’ll appreciate this one, from logion 114, “Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary go out from us, because women are not worthy of the Life.” Paul, of course in Galatians 3:28, said that no distinctions are drawn between “male and female” in the family of God. Well, the pseudepigraphal author of The Gospel of Thomas apparently didn’t get that memo. Or look at this one. Also in logion 114, “Jesus said, See, I shall lead her, so that I shall make her male, in order that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” I mean, considering where we are as a society today, that just leaves you speechless.

This work, the Gospel of Thomas was clearly pseudepigraphal. Clearly not of the Lord, clearly non-canonical. But it and several other books like it were entering the stream of literature in the second and third centuries which forced the faithful theologians and the faithful church leaders of the time to really double down on their efforts to work toward formally recognizing those books that actually were and are in the canon.

Alright, we’ve looked at the negative influence of Marcion, the heretic and we’ve looked at the rise of these various pseudepigraphal works like the Gospel of Thomas. There’s one other factor to consider as it relates to why in these centuries there was such a zeal and a dedication to carefully identify the true parameters of the New Testament canon. That third factor is an edict that went out from the emperor Diocletian in 303 A.D. See, by this point in history of the Roman Empire, in the years immediately leading up to the conversion of Constantine, I’m going to put a footnote there, an asterisk there, and say the “alleged conversion” of Constantine, ask me about that later, and the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Christianity in the times of Diocletian, early 300s, late 200s had been formally outlawed as a religion. It was illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire at this time. In furtherance of his prohibition, the empire’s prohibition on Christianity, this emperor, Diocletian issued an edict in 303 A.D., and he ordered all copies of the Scriptures within the Roman Empire to be confiscated so that they could be disposed of, burned. Well, this edict among Christians had the opposite of its intended effect because what happened was those who were serious about the Scripture and preserving the Scripture were forced into process of sifting through the various books which had been held out as being Christian Scripture and rightly determining which literature was truly inspired of God and was worthy of preservation and which was not. In other words, faithful believers of this time were forced to decide what they would protect and potentially give their lives for and what they would not. If a book truly came from God or if it needed to be added to the burn pile.

Okay, those are the three variables. The heretic Marcion and his stripped-down canon, pseudepigraphal writings like the Gospel of Thomas, and an edict from the emperor Diocletian. That’s sort of our interlude in the historical timeline that I’m developing here. So, before that interlude, we have all the figures we worked through. Clement of Rome, Polycarp and Ignatius and Irenaeus leading up to this point in the mid-second century and in the spike of interest that follows.

Now we’re going to take some time looking at some of the figures who came a bit later. From the mid-second century like the 150s onward and we’ll keep on trucking. We’re going to pick it up with Clement of Alexandria. Clement of Alexandria, to be distinguished from Clement of Rome, ministered in the early third century, the early 200s and he gave a brief synopsis of the writings he regarded as Scripture. He included all four Gospels, Acts, all thirteen letters of Paul, I Peter, I and II John, and Revelation. Also from the third century, the early third century was Hippolytus of Rome. He was considered by many to be the one of the great Western scholars of his day. Although he never compiled a list of the Scriptures or a canonical list of the Scriptures, he did define “all Scripture” as being “the prophets, the Lord, and the apostles.” Then there was Tertullian of Carthage. We interacted with him a few weeks ago. He’s the one that said, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” Who in the early third century used the term “New Testament” to designate the second part of the Christian canon, the Christian Bible. And though he never formally compiled a list of canonical books in his writings he made very clear that he considered the four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s thirteen epistles, I Peter, I John, Jude, and Revelation as being inspired Scripture. Next is Cyprian of Carthage. He was one of the leading church figures of his day toward the middle of the third century. In his writings, he cites as Scripture the four Gospels, Acts, eleven of Paul’s epistles, I Peter, I John, and Revelation.

Next, is Origen of Alexandria around the year 220 he compiled a list of Old Testament books that he regarded as Scripture. He never got around to compiling a formal list of New Testament books that he believed to be Scripture, but has you looked through his writings, and I can’t vouch for all of Origen’s writings because he had some wacky hermeneutical methods that he employed but one thing he got right is that he cited as Scripture all 27 books of the New Testament.

That now brings us to The Clermont List, or “Codex Claromontanus.” This is a list of sacred books that was compiled in Alexandria, Egypt, toward the end of the third century. We’re in the later 200s. This book is important, or this list is important because it provides a link between Origen, who as I just mentioned recognized all 27 books of the New Testament, and Eusebius who we’re going to get to in a little bit who ministered in the early 300s. This New Testament portion of the Clermont List includes 23 books of the 27 that we know. It omits Philippians, Hebrews, and I and II Thessalonians. Those were likely left off by mistake because there was no question or no debate about those books being canonical at this time.

I just mentioned Eusebius of Caesarea, he’s known as “the father of church history.” Around 320 A.D., so now we’re into the fourth century, he drew up a list of canonical books, both for the Old Testament and the New Testament. You might remember that name because last week we cited him because he developed a fourfold list of Old Testament writings. The Homologoumena, the Antilegomena, the Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha. I won’t go through those definitions again and tonight you can look that up on YouTube but when he came to the New Testament Eusebius divided up the material, not in a four-fold division, but rather by a three-fold division. First, was the Homologoumena. These were the universally accepted books. The four Gospels, Acts, what he would call the fourteen letters of Paul because there were a lot of people at this time that thought Paul wrote Hebrews, I John, I Peter, Revelation.

Second, was the Antilegomena. These were the “disputed books” which included James, II Peter, II John, III John, and Jude. We’ve already seen, as I’ve rattled off these early church history figures, many of these books were left off the lists of those men from the first and second century. Hence, Eusebius calling them now, “the disputed books.” James was on this list because it was considered to be potentially in conflict with Paul and Paul’s teachings about justification by faith alone. Well, of course, we just went through James as a church and we know that James does not deny justification by faith alone, but instead is emphasizing that true faith is manifested through works that reveal the faith that is already there. II Peter was contested or questioned based on differences in the vocabulary and the style of II Peter when compared to I Peter. Those questions were ultimately resolved though because it was recognized that Peter might have used a different scribe, an amanuensis, in writing II Peter than he did I Peter. And also, the books cover different topics and subjects. II John and III John were contested and questioned based on questions over authorship. Was it really John the apostle who wrote or John the Elder, were those different people? Also, just the seeming insignificance of what looked to be personal correspondence. Then Jude was questioned because of the reference in Jude 14-15 to the Book of Enoch. That objection was overcome by Paul citing non-canonical writers in his letters and yet Paul’s writings were never questioned.

The third category that Eusebius gave us was the Homologoumena, it was the Antilegomena, and then it was the Nothos, the “spurious” writings which were generally rejected as canonical from the very beginning. In this group you have really two categories. You have the apostolic fathers which we’ve already seen. These are like the men we cited from the first and second century. These were the successors to the apostles. Their writings weren’t rejected because they were necessarily wrong or unhelpful. They were rejected because they weren’t inspired by God through and apostolic author and therefore, they were not canonical. That would be like Clement’s First Clement book or Ignatius’s Epistle to the Magnesians or Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians or The Epistle of Barnabas or The Shepherd of Hermas or The Didache. A second group of these Nothos type writings were the truly heretical books like the Gospel of Thomas that we just went over.

So, what we’ve seen, putting this altogether, is that by the time of Eusebius, in the early 300s, more than twenty of the New Testament writings, what we now know as the New Testament books, were universally accepted. So, by the early 300s over 20 of the 27 are universally recognized while the other five to seven are more “up for grabs,” or still being debated and discussed. We now know of course that these were given by God. Those books that were up for debate were those five antilegomena I just mentioned James, II Peter,
II John, III John, and Jude. And also, you can mix in there Revelation and Hebrews were often discussed and bandied about as to whether they belonged in the canon. But by Eusebius’ time those books were increasingly being recognized as bearing the marks of divine inspiration and therefore canonicity. But the debates kept on going into the fourth century.

As we move into the fourth century, the 360s here, we have the Council of Laodicea. At this Council, a number of “canons” or decrees were issued and the only two that are relevant for us tonight are Canon 59 which said that only canonical books should be used in worship services. And then, Canon 60 which contained a canonical list of books which included all the Old and New Testament books that we know with the exception of one, Revelation. It wasn’t in Canon 60.

That brings us to another very important figure in church history, Athanasius of Alexandria. Athanasius was an influential leader of the church in Alexandria, Egypt in the mid-300s, the mid-fourth century. In 367 A.D., he issued a festal letter. It was like an annual letter where the leaders of the church set the date for Easter that year. That was actually the main purpose of the letter, and he circulated the letter to the other churches there in Egypt setting the date for Easter, whatever that date was, but in the same letter he provided a list of all 27 New Testament books as being the canon. That’s our canon. In fact, here are the words of Athanasius himself. As we read these words, mind you these are from the year 367. It says, “Again, we must not hesitate to name the books of the New Testament. They are as follows, four gospels - according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John. Then after these the Acts of the Apostles and the seven so-called catholic,” or general, “epistles of the apostles, as follows, one of James, two of Peter, three of John, and one of Jude. Next to these are fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul,” again he thinks Hebrews is written by Paul, “written in order as follows, first, to the Romans; then two to the Corinthians; and after these to the Galatians and next to the Ephesians; then to the Philippians and the Colossians, and the two to the Thessalonians and that to the Hebrews. Next are two to Timothy, one to Titus, and last the one to Philemon. Moreover, John’s Apocalypse,” Revelation. He continues and says, “These are the ‘springs of salvation,’ so that one who is thirsty may be satisfied with the oracles which are in them. In these alone is the teaching of true religion proclaimed as good news. Let no one add to these or take anything from them.” So that’s 367. Many followed in Athanasius’ wake.

Here’s Cyril of Jerusalem, he ministered in the mid to late 300s. In the 370s, he said this to the people he was addressing. He said, “learn diligently from the church what are the books of the Old Testament, and what are those of the New. But read none of the apocryphal writings.” Then there was Gregory of Nazianzus writing in the 380s he put together a list of what he called the “genuine books of inspired Scripture” which included 26 of the 27 books that we now hold in our New Testament save one, the book of Revelation. Then writing in the 390s, Amphilochius of Iconium compiled a canonical list that included all 27 books of the New Testament. Tough name to pronounce but he got it right. He had all 27 books in his list in the 390s.

So, by the end of the fourth century A.D. meaning the end of the 300s A.D. there was general consensus in the Western Latin speaking church at this point regarding the 27 books of the New Testament being the canon of Scripture. It took another hundred years for the Eastern church to recognize the canon. That then brings us to Augustine of Hippo, who lived from 354-430 A.D., and he considered by his time the scope of the canon, the definition of the canon to be settled. In his writings, he essentially replicated the earlier words from Athanasius that I just read to you. He said “That of the New Testament is contained within the following. Four books of the gospel according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John. Fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul,” also convinced of Paul’s authorship of Hebrews, “one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews. Two [epistles] of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James. One book of the Acts of the Apostles, and one of the Revelation of John.” Then in this late fourth century time frame we know that church councils were also held which addressed this very matter of the scope and the extent of the canon. It bears repeating and this is to speak against the narrative out there in the modern-day popular media, that the councils didn’t create the canon at all. They recognized the canon. And they did so, I hope I’ve persuaded you as we looked at all these historical figures in the three hundred plus years before these councils, they were recognizing what those earlier men had spoken of and recognized all those years prior. The first of these councils to mention here is the Council of Hippo, which was in 393 A.D. That Council formally ratified a set list of canonical books under the leadership of Augustine who was from Hippo. And that book approved the same books that Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius had approved before or endorsed. Then there was the Council of Carthage of 397 A.D., and that Council issued the following statement, “And further it was resolved that nothing should be read in church under the name of the divine Scriptures except the canonical writings.” And then right after this it went on to list, in this same statement from 397 A.D., all 66 books of our Bibles, 39 books of the Old, the 27 books of the New.

That brings us to the end of the 300s and for many of the centuries that followed, really for the next 1,000 years, “The Middle Ages,” that period that’s marked by the fall of the Roman Empire all the way to the Renaissance, there was really little to no debate over the content and scope of the Old and New Testaments. But then you get to the pre-Reformation and Reformation eras and the controversy re-opened in some ways. For instance, Erasmus of Rotterdam, we’re jumping all the way into the late 1400s, early 1500s now. He was a biblical scholar; a product of Renaissance educational system and he began to start to question the authorship of certain New Testament books. Based on his study of the Greek texts he did not think that Paul was the author of Hebrews as some of the other earlier scholars believed. He did not think that Revelation was the work of the apostle John. Erasmus didn’t go too far with that because he never denied that all of the canonical books were in fact canonical. His questions had more to do with authorship. But this guy, Martin Luther, took it a step further. When he published his German translation of the New Testament in 1522, he seriously considered omitting entirely, from his translation, the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. Unlike Erasmus who only questioned the authorship of the books, Luther questioned the canonicity of the books and whether they belonged in the Bible in the first place. He objected to Hebrews on the grounds of its uncertain authorship. He objected to James on the ground of those same theological debates in James 2 and whether that’s conflicting with Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9. He objected to Jude because he was troubled by the reference to Enoch. He questioned Revelation because he considered that book to be too opaque. He said, “a revelation should be revealing.” And Revelation, according to him, “lacks everything I hold as apostolic and prophetic.” Pretty bold statement. “Everything I hold to be apostolic and prophetic” doesn’t appear in the book of Revelation therefore it should appear in my German translation. In fact, in his German translation of the New Testament, what Luther did is he created an “inner canon” and an “outer canon.” And he placed the books he disputed at the end of his translation as the “outer canon.”

Well Luther was influential and William Tyndale when he got around in 1525 to translating the Bible into English, our language, he did something similar. He questioned those same books that Luther did and placed them in an outer canon like a separate canon, a sub-canon within his English translation. That continued with the Coverdale Bible of 1535, the Matthew’s Bible of 1537. This delegation or the subjugation of those four books into sort of a sub-canonical status, it was only with the Great Bible translation of 1539 that it was remedied and those contested books, the books Luther contested originally were then put in the order that we now know them in the English Bible.

Well, after the Reformation era challenges to the canonicity of the New Testament were largely unheard of, at least in the sphere of conservative, Bible-believing Christians. In more liberal and critical circles questions about authorship and canonicity continue to this day. I have shelves full of commentaries, bad commentaries in my office that attest to that. I have commentaries that say that Solomon didn’t write Ecclesiastes and that Paul didn’t write Ephesians and I just think when it gets cold and if we run out of kindling, guess where those commentaries are going to go.

Alright, so we’re going to round out our discussion here of the recognition of the New Testament canon with just a couple of quotes that I think are helpful. Lee Martin McDonald says, “Some people think that church councils deliberated and determined what books should be included in the biblical canon, but a more accurate view is that the church councils acknowledged those books that had already obtained prominence from widespread usage among the various Christian churches in their areas. Church council decisions reflect what the communities recognized, and they subsequently authorized this recognition for the church.” And this one from Metzger is really good. He says, “The canon was not the result of a series of contests involving church politics. The canon is rather the separation that came about because of the intuitive insight of Christian believers. For somebody to say that the canon emerged only after councils and synods made these pronouncements would be like saying, ’Let’s get several academies of musicians to make pronouncements that the music of Bach and Beethoven is wonderful. But we knew that before the pronouncement was made. We knew it because of sensitivity to what is good music and what is not. The same with the canon.”

Okay, we’ve looked at the origins of the New Testament canon, the recognition of the New Testament canon. That takes us to our final point and this one will be brief. The witness to the New Testament canon. So last week, as we looked at the canonization of the Old Testament, we looked at various pieces of evidence which point us back to the original autographs of the Old Testament text. We don’t have that Old Testament original autograph anymore, but we have various pieces of evidence that point us back to the original autographs such as the Masoretic Text or the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Aramaic Targum. We’re going to go through this same exercise this evening only now, as it relates to the witness to the original autographs of the New Testament text.

Now, it needs to be said that there is a mountain, and I do mean a mountain of primary evidence, manuscript evidence, pointing back to the original New Testament autographs. The best way to explain this to you is by comparison. Homer wrote around 900 B.C. and the oldest fragment of a copy that we have of one of his writings is from 400 B.C. So, he wrote in 900 B.C., our oldest manuscript is from 400 B.C. so there is about a 500-year gap. We have less than 2,000 manuscripts of Homer’s writings. Herodotus, he wrote around 440 B.C. and the oldest fragment of a copy that we have of one of his writings is from 950 A.D. meaning, there is about a 1,400-year gap between when he wrote and the oldest copy of his writing that we have. There are about 109 manuscripts of his writings. Thucydides wrote about 400 B.C. The oldest fragment we have of one of his writings is from about 250 B.C. so there’s about 150-year gap. We have only 8 manuscripts of his writings. Plato wrote around 380 B.C. The oldest fragment we have from his writings is from around 900 A.D. meaning there is about a 1,300-year gap between writing and manuscript. We have around 210 of his manuscripts today. Julius Caesar wrote around 50 B.C. The oldest fragment we have from his writings is from about 850 A.D. so there is a 900-year gap. We have about 250 manuscripts of Caesar’s writings.
Compare that, now, to the New Testament. In the New Testament we have writings that are dated from James, 44-45 A.D. all the way to Revelation, about 95 A.D. The oldest fragment we have of a New Testament writing is from about 125 A.D. We’re going to get into that in just a second. Meaning, that there is a time span of just 30 years, maybe 50 years if you go all the way back, or 70 years if you go back to James, between that fragment, and the books of the New Testament. While we have 109 manuscripts of Herodotus’ writings and 8 manuscripts of Thucydides’ writings, we have over 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament writings. I didn’t say 2,500. I said 25,000. That’s an incredibly large number. With such a mountain of evidence before us that instills in us a very high level of confidence that through the study of those manuscripts what we have in our hands, in the New Testament, is a very accurate representation of the original Greek manuscripts. These manuscripts, as Phillip Wesley Comfort says, “are available to us for ascertaining the original wording of the New Testament text. These discoveries have brought us much closer to the original text of the Greek New Testament.” Or David S. Dockery says, "From these early copies and translations scholars have tried to recapture the original Greek text. The work has been successful, and today we possess a very accurate and reliable New Testament text.”

Now, in the time that we have left this evening we can’t be completely comprehensive in terms of describing and summarizing all of the evidence that is out there, but between the fragments and the manuscripts but we can certainly hit some of the highlights. So, what I’m going to do now in our last few minutes here is walk through some of the manuscript and fragmentary evidence which all serves as a highly accurate witness to the contents of those New Testament original autographs. We’ll start with the oldest evidence we have of a New Testament text. I mentioned just a minute ago that our oldest data, our oldest piece of evidence, is from 125 A.D. That’s referring to the John Rylands manuscript. It’s a fragment. It’s tiny. It’s only about 2.5 by 3.5 inches, and it has inscribed on it five verses, including John 18:37 where Jesus says, “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” But based on its style of script, it has been dated to the first half of the second century with most scholars today accepting a date of about 125 A.D.

Next up, is the Chester Beatty Papyri. These were discovered in 1930. This is just a piece of one shown here and these are essentially identical to the Codex Sinaiticus, which we’re going to talk about in just a second. But these papyri contain three different sections. The first is a 220-page papyrus book, containing parts of the Four Gospels and Acts. The second is 86 pages, the second of these sections, and it contains the oldest existing copy of eight different Pauline epistles as well as part of the letter to the Hebrews. The third papyri is 10 pages, and contains a portion of the book of Revelation and this is from the early third century, if I didn’t mention that already probably the 220s-230s A.D.

Next, we come to what I just mentioned, the Codex Sinaiticus. What this is, is a high-quality parchment manuscript that contains most of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament. It is the most significant New Testament manuscript ever discovered. As the Masoretic Text that we looked at last week serves as the baseline for Old Testament studies, the Codex Sinaiticus really served as the gold standard, as being that most complete and ancient accurate text of the New Testament that we’ve ever found. It is a work of art really. It’s laid out in these four really beautiful columns over page over page. It was discovered in 1844 by a man named Constantin von Tischendorf. You really should go look up the story because it’s a fascinating kind of Indian Jones type story of how he found this including monks that were about to burn these before he rescued them at the last minute. You’ve got look it up. Other manuscripts in addition to the Rylands fragment, the Codex Sinaiticus, it’s just worth mentioning that there are thousands of additional Greek manuscripts that are newer in time, more recent in time to us. There are thousands upon thousands more Latin manuscripts from more recent times. All of those manuscripts, what they do is they help scholars. They have helped scholars throughout the centuries get closer and closer to what would have been in those original autographs of the New Testament. Those manuscripts coupled with the labors of those scholars, what they do is they have allowed ordinary Christians like you and me, to know with confidence that what we hold in our hands in our English New Testaments are an accurate representation of the original Greek autographs which dissolved into the air many, many years ago. Here’s a quote from F.F. Bruce that’s worth closing on. I think we’ve looked at this one before, but he says, “In the canon of scripture we have the foundation documents of Christianity, the charter of the church, the title-deeds of faith. For no other literature can such a claim be made. And when the claim is made, it is made not merely for a collection of ancient writings. In the words of scripture, the voice of the Spirit of God continues to be heard.” Indeed.

Alright, tonight we’ve looked at the origins of the New Testament canon. We’ve looked at the recognition of the New Testament canon. We’ve looked at the witness to the New Testament canon. Starting next week, we’ll move off the topic of canonicity and we’ll move into some new topics such as translations and versions of the Bible as well as textual criticism of the Bible. That should be fun.

Let’s pray. God thank you for this chance again tonight to learn about You and specifically to learn about Your word and how You have preserved Your word over the centuries. Thank you that You are a God who is faithfully and kindly breathed out Your word. Thank you that You are a God who has preserved Your word throughout the centuries. I think of Psalm 119:89, “Forever, O Lord, is Your word fixed in the heavens.” We also know from places like Isaiah 55:11 that it always goes out and accomplishes its purposes. Well part of that is the fact that it has been preserved all these years. So, God I pray that we would leave this place very mindful of the treasure that we hold in Your word. That we would not be slack in going to it, studying it, reading it, applying it to our lives as we seek to grow in the likeness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I pray that You would go before everyone here this week, that You would strengthen us for whatever You have for us and that we would keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.