Remember going to the video rental store, like Blakcbuster, or Hollywood Video? In my home town, had a little local shop that was a combination video rental and comic book store. It was on my way home from school, and I’d stop in just to see the latest comic book or movie release.
In those stores, they had all the videos separated by genre. They had family movies, action flicks, horror, and whatever other genres there were. The guy who owned the place was always moving movies around, as new ones came in, or people would pick up one up and move it to the wrong section. I mean, you can’t have Star Wars next to A Fist Full of Dollars. And you shouldn’t have Halloween next to the Lion King. Genres help us automatically understand what to expect from books, albums, or movies. My dad once told me that he went to see Blazing Saddles in the movie theater because he was expecting a cowboy movie in the vain of John Wayne; boy was he surprised.
But its this idea of understanding the genre of something to see if it fits what we’re looking for, that brings us back to our fall apologetics series, where we’re seeking to answer some of the issues that Bart Ehrman has with the orthodox belief in the trusting the Bible as God’s inspired word.
We’ve done this by first showing how Jesus is a historical person, because if Jesus wasn’t historical, then anything about him would be false. If he wasn’t a real life person, then the Christian faith is false, because it rests on a physical death and resurrection. But since we can show that Jesus is historical, we can look at the writings about him and see if they are accurate in their portray.
Then we began looking at the New Testament documents to see if we can trust them to be what was originally written by those who claimed to have seen Jesus. We did this by first looking at the external evidences. When looking at the manuscript data and comparing it to other significant historical manuscripts, we saw how much closer to the original sources the New Testament is to other affirmed documents. This gives us a good basis on which to trust that those who are said to have written the New Testament actually did.
Finally last week, we looked at some of the internal evidences as to why we can trust the New Testament to be accurate. We covered the supposed errors and found that even the 1% of errors that are theological, do not change primary Christian doctrines. Then we looked at some supposed discrepancies and contradictions. We came to an understating that there are discrepancies in that each writer gives us a fuller picture of events, but there are no contradictions. This led us to understanding that God’s word is inerrant in that it is trustworthy and authoritative, and that it is infallible in the purpose of communicating the way to salvation.
However, Ehrman has two more issues, and the one we’re coving to today is about why certain books were included and others were not. Ehrman writes in Jesus, Interrupted, “If God inspired certain books in the decades after Jesus died, how do I know that the later church fathers chose the right books to be included in the Bible … There were some who accepted the Gospel of Peter and some who rejected the Gospel of John … Some Christians rejected the three Pastoral Epistles … others accepted the Epistle of Barnabas … If God was making sure that his church would have the inspired books of Scripture … why were there such heated debates and disagreements …?”
The issue Ehrman brings up here is that of canonicity. Why do we have the 66 books of the Bible we do and were there others that should have been included?
First, to clarify, when were talking about the canon of Scripture, what we’re referring to is, “… the term … most closely associated with the collection of books that the church has recognized as the written Word of God … Although the various Christian traditions are not in full agreement … at the very least all agree that the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are canonical and therefore authoritative."
When we’re talking about the canon of Scripture, we’re talking about those books that are considered authoritative to Christian faith. Not books that are helpful, or interesting, but authoritative to what it means to be Christian, as opposed to any other belief system.
The process of canonizing the books of the Bible, wasn’t done by the Church as if their purpose was to pick what best suited them and make that the standard. As BB. Warfield states, “The Canon of the New Testament was completed when the last authoritative book was given to any church by the apostles, and that was when John wrote the apocalypse, about A.D. 98.”
Before we start looking at books that were not included in the canon of Scripture, we need to understand the criteria that the early Church used. First, the document had to be written by an Apostle or someone closely associated with them. That means there had to be a strong agreement that those whose names were associated with the writing, actually wrote it. This was done through attestations by disciples of those who were the writers. We see this most notably with Papias a disciple of the John the Apostle who points to which writers wrote which books early in the second century. We’ve already shown that the New Testament manuscripts were written during the lifetimes of the Apostles and so have a strong case for them to have written their works.
The second criteria, was that the writing had to be consistent with already revealed Scripture. In other words, it couldn’t contradict the Old Testament, nor couldn’t contradict clear teachings of Jesus. As an example, if it was established that Jesus was resurrected physically, which First Corinthians 15:3-5, one of the oldest hymns of the faith reveals, then anything that disagrees with that is not considered correct.
The last criteria, is that it has to be agreed upon my the majority of the Church. One individual, or even one congregation cannot put forth a document, that none of the congregations have ever seen nor heard of. The Church as a whole has to agree. Ehrman states that there were heated disagreements, yet every tradition and denomination that holds to the orthodox faith, agrees that at least these 66 books are authoritative. In fact the issues that Ehrman’s describing come on when talked about the extra-biblical books.
So what does this look like historically? Going back to our timeline. We have already seen that by 180AD, we have the Moratoria Canon, which has at least 22 of the 27 books we now consider canon. Another major canon list is by Athanasius in 367AD, and the Council of Hippo in 397AD. This last council is where Church historians consider the canon to be finalized. So, the documents which could be included in the Bible, must come prior to this date. As any later and we know for a fact that they could not have been written by eyewitnesses.
So what about the writings prior to this?
Personally, I place them into three categories: The first category is heretical. By this I mean, those books that fail, not just at not being written during the lifetime of the eye witnesses, but also fully contradict established Scripture. These would be your Gnostic writings of the one to three hundreds AD. The list includes, but is not limited to: The Gospel of Egyptians, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, the Sophia of Jesus Christ, the Pistis Sophia, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocryphon of John, the Second Treatise of the Great Sett, the Hypostasis of Archons, and the Tripartite Tractate. These present a non-Jewish Jesus. He’s presented more as a Greek philosopher and not as a Jewish Rabbi. In other words, heretical texts change the very person of Jesus, so that he is no longer accurate in a historical sense of a Jewish Rabbi and in his Jewish teachings.
The second category are those writings that are interesting, but they’re reasonably rejected. What I mean by this is that they are not out right heresy, but they’re not consistent in theology. Two that fit into this category are The Acts of Thecla and Third Corinthians. Thecla is a story of a woman who supposedly met Paul and became a believer. However, there are a lot of inconsistencies in theology, examples being that she baptized herself, something the early Church didn’t do, and the idea of virginity was overtly important. Then the historical timing is off. Not only was it written too late, but the author is unknown. On the other hand, Third Corinthians, if a part of the Acts of Paul, which is a later collection of works, was written by Tertullian. Tertullian was a theologian who wrote as an homage to Paul. But it is still too late to be included as an eyewitness.
The final category is Good for Christian use. By this I mean that, though they were not written by an eyewitness to Jesus, they are still insightful for Christian belief. Three of these would be the Epistle of Barnabas, which was written between 70-135AD, and was connected to the Barnabas of Acts by Clement of Alexandria; though that is its only attestation. It was rejected as being a part of canon because it focused more on explaining Jewish theology than on the redemption of Jesus. But it’s still useful to understanding the Jewish world of the first century. Then there is the Didache, which was written between 70-110AD. This work was said to be from the teachings of the twelve, however it would be better understood as an early Church handbook on how to conduct Church practices; such as: baptism and the Lord’s supper. Finally, there is the Shepherd of Hermas, which was written around 155AD, by an unknown author. It’s a story of a Christian freed slave and how he implements Christian teachings into life. It’s a good story to show how Christian ethics works in the world, but it’s light on the theology of Jesus.
And here’s the problem with Ehrman’s issue of why we have the canon we do. Ehrman complains that the manuscripts we have are not the originals, yet we can trace the linage of the New Testament back to the time period in which they are said to have been written. In addition to this, the New Testament speaks of things in ways that first century Jewish people would. The language and customs are rooted in the first century. We have fragments from within twenty-five years of the death of the last apostle. We have overlapping canon lists and attestations of what the early Church considered authoritative. The Church did not see themselves as creating canon, but receiving it from God.
If these other documents were included, Ehrman would rightfully point out that they were too late to be eyewitness accounts. That the second to fourth century works were not Jewish in customs or language, which means that they presented a non-historical Jesus. Yet, because Ehrman simply wants to dilute people’s trust in the canon of Scripture, he points to writings that he himself agrees would not be acceptable. On Bart Ehrman’s official website, one of his article contributors, Keith Long, writes this, “The New Testament canon selection committee opted to go with a historical understanding of Jesus’ life, a theological understanding of his death, and a physical understanding of his resurrection …. Another factor may be the dating of these texts. Most are believed to be from the mid to late second century or later. The age of these texts all but certifies that none of them could have been written by people from Jesus’ inner circle or his contemporaries .… As for the authorship? No, Thomas, Philip, and Mary Magdalene did not survive two to three centuries after Jesus! But their legacies certainly did for many people in the early Church.”
So for the third straight week, we see that, though Ehrman popularizes a position that questions why these other works were not included in the canon of Scripture, academically he embraces the reality that these other works do not hold up like the New Testament documents do.
This goes back to helping us trust that God has persevered his word, for what he wanted to communicate throughout the centuries in what we call the Bible. Through war, emperors, scribes, and all the sin that’s there, God has brought us a firm foundation on which to seek him for salvation. And we can be assured what the eyewitness saw is what they communicated in writing, and what we have today.
For my challenge for you is this, I have printed off the shorter of the three good ancient documents, called the Didache. It’s out in the foyer. If you’d like to see what was being shared by the early Church, take a copy and read through it this week. It’s an interesting read and has insight into how the early Church conducted things like worship services. Then take time to seek God in praise for keeping his word from his eyewitnesses to today.
And next week, we’ll finish up this series by looking at the heart issue that Barth Ehrman really has.
But for now, let us be a people who seek the truth that God has reveled in his word. Amen.
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