Systematic Theology: Lesson 6 - Canonicity and Preservation

CANONICITY AND PRESERVATION
Bibliology- Lesson 6

We have defined Christian theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. We have also studied how God moved the authors of Scripture by His Spirit, so that they, without error, wrote down what God desired them to write. We need to ask: “How do we know which writings belong in the Scriptures?”

 This brings us to the issue of CANONICITY. When we speak of the canon of Scripture, we are referring to those books that are included in the Bible. The word canon comes from the Greek Word κανων (kanon, from which we get our word ‘cane’), which means “rod, measuring rule, standard” (Gal 6:16; 2 Cor 10:13, 15, 16). “By 350, Athanasius was the first to use the term in the technical sense in which we use it today—to designate the collection of inspired books as the ‘standard’ of the faith.”[1]

 When you get down to it, canonicity is much simpler than many would lead us to believe.

 1.   As each Old and New Testament book was written and presented to God’s people, the people recognized the divine authenticity conferred upon it through recognized and verified prophets and apostles.

a.   The Torah - (Genesis-Deuteronomy) was recognized as canonical from the time of its writing (Josh 1:7-8; 8:31; 23:6; 1 Kings 2:3; 8:53, 56, 61; 2 Kings 14:6; 21:8; 23:25; 2 Chron 14:4; 17:9; Jer 8:8; Dan 9:11, 13; Ezra 6:18; Neh 13:1; Mal 4:4).

b.   The Prophets – (Joshua-Malachi) were recognized as true prophets who were the successors of Moses.

                                       i.    This succession of prophets was responsible for recording the history of Israel (1 Chron 29:29; 2 Chron 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 20:34; 32:32; 33:19; 35:27).        

                                     ii.    This succession of prophets may explain why the ends of various books seem to have been written by someone else (Deut 34:1-12; last five verses of Joshua; Ruth as the ending of Judges; last four verses of 2 Kings; last two verses of 2 Chronicles).[2]

                                    iii.    The writings of the prophets were regarded as divinely authoritative as their spoken words (Dan 9:2 with Jer 25:11f; Jer 26:18f., quoting Micah; Mic 4:1-4 with Isa 2:2-4).

1.   1 Maccabees says that the Temple stones should not be used “until a prophet should arise” (1 Macc 4:46; 9:23-27; 14:41). 1 Maccabees indicates that a long time had passed since the time of the prophets: “After the death of Judas,…there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets had ceased to appear among them (9:23-27).

2.   Josephus said that since the time of Artaxerxes, the histories of Israel were not “esteemed of the like authority with the former” because “there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time.”[3]

3.   The Talmud says, “After the latter prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel.”[4]

4.   The New Testament testifies that the Jews in the time of Christ had a canon (Matt 5:17; 7:12; Luke 16:16-17; 24:27; cf. Luke 4:16-17; Acts 13:15, 27).

c.    The Gospels and Acts – (Matthew-Acts) were written by apostles (Matthew and John) and associates of the apostles (Mark wrote down Peter’s accounts of Jesus’ life; Luke investigated eyewitness accounts and recorded them for Luke/Acts). The authors do not identify themselves in the texts, however the early church unanimously testified to the authorship of each of the gospel. By the middle of the 2^nd century, it was normal for the church to speak of “The Fourfold Gospel.”

d.   The Epistles and Revelation – (Romans-Revelation) were written by apostles (Romans-Philemon; 1 Peter-3 John; Revelation) and by associates of the apostles (Hebrews [likely by an associate of Paul]; James [the brother of Jesus, who pastored the church in Jerusalem]; Jude [the brother of Jesus and James]).

2.    The 1^st century church received the Old Testament in completed form.

a.   Jesus and the apostles quote from the Old Testament more than 250 times and allude to it more than 900 times. 

b.   The apocryphal books (books that were written during the Intertestamental times) were not written by prophets, thus they have never been considered authoritative Scripture by the Jews or the Church until the Roman Catholic Church suddenly affirmed their canonicity at the Council of Trent in response to the Reformation.

3.   The New Testament took around 60 years after the death of Christ to be completed. The earliest New Testament writings were written about 15 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

a.   The dating of the New Testament Books

                                       i.    Matthew – perhaps as early as 50 AD

                                     ii.    Mark – around the mid-50’s AD

                                    iii.    Luke – around 60 AD

                                    iv.    John – between 80-90 AD

                                     v.    Acts – 60-62 AD

                                    vi.    Romans – 56 AD

                                  vii.    1 Corinthians – 55 AD

                                 viii.    2 Corinthians 56 AD

                                    ix.    Galatians – 50 AD

                                     x.    Ephesians – 60-62 AD

                                    xi.    Philippians – 60 -62 AD

                                  xii.    Colossians – 60-62 AD

                                 xiii.    1 Thessalonians – 51 AD

                                 xiv.    2 Thessalonians – 51/52 AD

                                   xv.    1 Timothy – 62-64 AD

                                 xvi.    2 Timothy – 67 AD

                                xvii.    Titus – 62-64 AD

                              xviii.    Philemon – 61/62 AD

                                 xix.    Hebrews – 67-69 AD

                                  xx.    James – 45-49 AD

                                 xxi.    1 Peter – 64-65 AD

                               xxii.    2 Peter – 67-68 AD

                              xxiii.    1 John – 90-95 AD

                              xxiv.    2 John – 90-95 AD

                                xxv.    3 John – 90-95 AD

                              xxvi.    Jude – 68-70 AD

                             xxvii.    Revelation – 90-95 AD

4.   The New Testament books were copied and passed to other churches (cf. Col 4:16). The churches carefully authenticated letters, because so many false ones were going around (cf. 2 Thess 2:2; 3:17; 1 Cor 16:21).[5]

a.   It follows that each church probably only had an incomplete collection of the letters that had been written up to that point. It took time for the letters to circulate all the way through the Roman Empire and beyond.

b.   As new letters were received by individual churches, it took time for them to be copied and make their way through the world. Thus, an individual church may not have had a complete collection of letters until well into the 2^nd century.

c.    Thus, in some churches, it took time for them to authenticate some letters and add them to the list.

5.   By 367 AD, we start seeing lists with all 27 New Testament books.

a.   By 115 AD, Clement and other church fathers were calling the apostolic writings “Scripture.”

b.   As usual in the church, it took affliction and heresy to motivate the church to spell out its beliefs. This motivation came from…

                                       i.    Gnosticism - The appearance of Gnostic writings and traditions. “They all claimed that they possessed a special knowledge of gnosis (Greek for “knowledge”) of spiritual truth which was not available to the ordinary Christian. Jesus had privately taught this secret knowledge to His apostles, they said, and it had been passed on and handed down to the Gnostics. It was impossible, Gnostics argued, to understand the Gospel correctly without this secret knowledge, and the various Gnostic sects had their own Scriptures containing their version of the gnosis.[6]

                                     ii.    Marcionism - An influential Gnostic leader, Marcion (85-160 AD), had broken from the church and established a new, worldwide, form of Gnosticism. Marcion polluted the canon (140 AD). He, as other Gnostics, rejected the Old Testament.  “Marcion also produced his own version of the New Testament. He threw out everything that had a Jewish element, accepting only Luke’s Gospel and most of Paul’s letters. According to Marcion, Paul was the only apostle who had really understood Jesus. However, Marcion had to remove even from Luke and Paul all favourable references to Judaism.”[7]

                                    iii.    Montanism – “Montanus, a young convert to Christianity, came on the scene in the region of Asia Minor known as Phrygia in about AD 170, when he started to prophesy. He was joined by two prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla. They claimed that the Holy Spirit was speaking in a new way to the Church directly through them.”[8]

                                    iv.    Persecutions – There were multiple Empire-wide persecutions of Christians. The final persecution saw the order for all Christian Holy Books to be destroyed. This was the Edict of Diocletian in 303. Christians needed to know which books they should die for.

c.    When Constantine legalized Christianity in 313, he also commissioned Eusebius to have fifty official copies of the New Testament produced. Thus, the church had to finalize the canon.

d.   Athanasius’ “Festal letter” was written in 367 AD. This is considered the final recognition of the New Testament canon. Thus, less than 275 years passed between the final writing of the New Testament and the official canonicity of all 27 books.

e.    There are other good letters that were written by faithful next-generation disciples of the apostles. These were included in some New Testament lists, but were never recognized as canon. These include The Shepherd of Hermas, The Epistles of Clement, the Epistle of Polycarp, etc. These give us a good look into the next generation of Christians after the disciples, but the church always recognized they were not inspired.[9]

6.   It should be clear by this point that the church did not confer canonicity on any books of the Bible. Canonicity was RECOGNIZED by the church as they recognized the apostolic/prophetic inspiration by God and the embedded authority of God in each canonical writing. They were clear about which writings ARE inspired and authoritative and which ones ARE NOT.

 

What about the Apocrypha?[10]

1.           The New Testament NEVER quotes or references the Apocryphal books.

2.           The earliest Septuagint (LXX, Greek translation of the Old Testament) did not include them until the fourth century AD.

3.           Many important church father (Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Origen, Jerome) opposed the books of the Apocrypha.

4.           The Syrian translation (Peshitta) of the second century AD did not include the Apocrypha.

5.           The Apocrypha contains unbiblical morality and geographical/historical/chronological errors.

6.           There are many historical errors and anachronisms.

7.           They teach doctrines which are false.

8.           They lack the distinctive elements which give genuine Scripture its divine character.

9.           They were written during the Silent Years when no prophet was heard in Israel (cf. 1 Macc 9:23-27).

 

What about the Gnostic Gospels?

You hear much about these “lost” gospels that are “missing” from the Bible. Secular scholars like to point these out. These attacks, often misrepresenting the facts, have led many to abandon the faith or, at the very least, to lose assurance in the inerrancy, sufficiency, and authority of the Bible.

 

However, once you start to dig into these writings, you find several things.

1.   They were written after the middle of the second century AD. Thus, they were NOT apostolic.

2.   They were never circulated throughout the churches. They were never quoted by the fathers.

3.   They contain obviously heretical Gnostic doctrine (hence the name GNOSTIC gospels).

 

Consider the Gospel of Thomas: a Gnostic Gospel that was found in the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt in 1945. It is a collection of supposed sayings of Jesus.

 

1.   It dates to 175-180 AD. Obviously, the apostle Thomas never wrote it. It is a “pseudepigraphal” writing (deceitfully attributed to someone like Thomas to make it sound authoritative).

2.   Its recent discovery in 1945 shows it was never read, acknowledged, or circulated through the church. Rather, Origen wrote that the church never accepted it.[11]

3.   It contains heretical Gnostic doctrine. Consider: “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.’” Such doctrine is obviously NOT in accord with the teaching of Jesus, the prophets before Him, or the apostles after Him.

 

Don’t be fooled by the gas-lighting of skeptics. Both the Old and New Testament canons as we have them are well-attested as to their apostolic/prophetic origin, universal acceptance, and consistency in doctrine and practice.

 

But…how do we know the canon is COMPLETE? Could other books be added?

 

Scripture warns against adding and deleting from itself (Deut 4:2; 12:32; Prov 30:6). “Realizing that additional canonical books actually came after these words of warning, one can only conclude that while these admonitions permitted no deletions whatsoever, they did, in fact, allow for authorized, inspired writings to be added in order to complete the canon protected by these passages.”[12] I would clarify a bit that it is additions and deletions to the text of the law (Genesis-Deuteronomy) that are forbidden. It’s not the addition of new divine revelation.

“It was the law, the gift of God at Horeb, that could not be supplemented or reduced. This did not mean, however, that there could be no further revelation from God; the promise of a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15-18) pointed forward beyond the present situation.”[13]

 

 

Evidence that the New Testament canon is closed:[14]

1.   The book of Revelation book ends the Bible with the creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

2.   The Revelation is the only New Testament book to give a warning against addition/deletion.

3.   The Revelation, unlike the other three warnings against addition/deletion, warns of divine judgments that will result from tampering (Rev 22:18-19).

4.   In the same way as there was a prophetic silence after Malachi, so there has been an apostolic/prophetic silence since the apostles passed away.

5.   The early church believed that the Revelation ended the New Testament canon and there could be no more inspired writings because there are no more apostles.

6.   No promise of another line of prophets like in Deuteronomy.

7.   Revelation is a different context and genre than Deuteronomy.

 

So we have seen how the official list of books, the canon, was recognized by Israel and the church as each book was added. Next, we need to ask, “How was the canon passed down through the generations?”

 

This issue of PRESERVATION is of extreme importance. Since most Christians have not been taught about this, enemies of the faith have attacked this foundation. They ask, “How can you believe that the Bible was passed down generation to generation without corruption?” The Muslim actually states this outright: “Though the Quran teaches that the Jewish and Christian books are good and authoritative, the Bible that is possessed today has been corrupted beyond recognition.”

 

How do we respond to this?

 

1.   The books of the Old and New Testaments have been significant Holy Books every since each portion was written. Thus, extreme care was taken that the text was accurately copied from one generation to the next.

2.   The Bible has been closely studied by many people throughout history. Many Jews and Christians have had large portions committed to memory. They would have noticed when a reading deviated.[15]

3.   The Bible has been read aloud in Temple, Synagogue, and Church services for centuries. The common people were, until the medieval church, expected to know the Scriptures. Deviations would have been noticed and questioned.

4.   The Dead Sea Scrolls affirmed the accuracy of the transmission of the Old Testament. Scrolls dating to 200-100 BC were found in the caves of Qumran. When compared with manuscripts from 12 centuries later, there were no major differences. The accuracy of the Old Testament text is also witnessed by various translations and quotations.

5.   We have a wealth of manuscript evidence leading right up to the time of the original autograph copies of the New Testament. In contrast, the work with the second-most attested manuscripts is Homer’s Iliad with only 643 manuscripts, and the earliest manuscript is from the 13^th century!

a.   5,309 extant Greek manuscripts (P52 dates as early as 125 AD! The earliest full copy [Codex Sinaiticus] dates to the 4^th century, and many more portions and fragments date between 125 AD and 1500 AD).

b.   10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts (starting end of 4^th century).

c.    2,000 Ethiopic manuscripts (6^th century)

d.   4,101 Slavic manuscripts

e.    2,587 Armenian manuscripts (5^th century)

f.     350 Syriac Peshitta manuscripts (150-250 AD)

g.    100 Bohairic manuscripts (Egyptian, 4^th century)

h.   75 Arabic manuscripts

i.     50 Old Latin manuscripts

j.     7 Anglo Saxon manuscripts

k.   6 Gothic manuscripts (4^th century)

l.     3 Sogdian manuscripts

m.  2 Old Syriac manuscripts (4^th century)

n.   2 Persian manuscripts

o.   1 Frankish manuscript[16]

6.   We have a wealth of quotations starting from the next generation after the apostles.

a.   Clement of Rome (95 AD) quotes from Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, 1 Corinthians, 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Titus.

b.   Ignatius (70-110 AD) quotes from Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Galatians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, James, 1 Peter

c.    Clement of Alexandria (150-212 AD) – Quoted all but 3 New Testament books in 2,400 quotations.

d.   Tertullian (160-220 AD) – Quotes from the New Testament more than 7,000 times, of which 3,800 are from the Gospels.

e.    Hippolytus (170-235 AD) – More than 1,300 references.

f.     Origen (185-253 AD) – More than 18,000 quotations. Cyprian (died 258 AD) – More than 740 Old Testament quotations and 1,030 New Testament[17]

 

The evidence is overwhelming: God has divinely enabled an accurate transmission of the Scriptures through the reverent, painstaking care of countless copyists and preachers. In His wisdom, He has not allowed the original autographs to survive. But He has left extensive witness to the preservation of His Word through the generations.

 

We can confidently say that what we hold in our hands contains the authoritative writings from God that have been faithfully transmitted to us.

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[1] Mook, Unpublished Class Notes, 100.

[2] “It thus appears that in every case from the Pentateuchal history to the post-Exilic writings a historical book is given a colophon or footnote that unites it in continuous narrative fashion to the succeeding book.” R. Laird Harris, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, 168.

[3] Josephus, Against Apion, 1.8.

[4] Tractate “Sanhedrin,” Babylonian Talmud, VII-VIII, 24.

[5] Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) wrote, “And on the day called Sunday there is a gathering together to one place of all those who live in cities or in the country, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader has ceased, the president presents admonition and invitation to the imitation of these good things,” quoted in McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 37.

[6] Needham, 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power, 95. Bold/Italics in original. He continues, “The material world, Gnostics taught, had not been created by the supreme God, but by an inferior and foolish being called the Demiurge (Greek for “architect”). They identified the Demiurge with the God of the Old Testament, and therefore regarded the Old Testament as an evil and unspiritual book. The supreme God and the physical universe were completely alien to each other. The human body was part of this evil material world; salvation meant escaping from the body, and from the world of space and time in which the body holds us prisoner…The Gnostics had a totally negative attitude to all physical activities, particularly sex which they abstained from. The only thing of any value was the soul, which was a divine spark from the spiritual world, trapped inside the body by the wicked Demiurge.”

 

[7] Ibid, 97. Marcionism continued until the 6^th century.

 

[8] Ibid, 104. “Among the distinctive teachings of the New Prophecy [of Montanism] were an absolute ban on second marriages in all circumstances, an obligation to frequent fasting and ‘xerophagies’ (eating only dried food), the veiling of virgins, the rejection of forgiveness for serious sins committed after baptism, and commands from the Paraclete that Christians must never seek to escape persecution and martyrdom but embrace them eagerly…Visions, revelatory dreams, speaking in tongues, prophetic utterances of prediction and of divine comfort and rebuke, and other extraordinary religious experiences also abounded among the Montanists. They renamed their community of Pepuza in Phrygia ‘Jerusalem’.” Ibid, 105.

 

[9] Ignatius (50-115 AD) wrote “I do not wish to command you as Peter and Paul; they were apostles…” quoted in McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 37.

[10] Apocrypha means “hidden” or “concealed.” This term was coined by Jerome in the fourth century. Jerome included them in his Latin translation (the Vulgate) but separated them from the Old Testament with a page explaining that the Apocrypha are not inspired.

[11] Origen, Homilies on Luke 1.2.

[12] MacArthur and Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, 125.

 

[13] Craigie, Deuteronomy, 130.

 

[14] Ibid, 125-126.

 

[15] New studies in oral societies have demonstrated the remarkable accuracy of generational transmission. Even more accuracy is attained in a semi-oral society (one where the people regularly hear the words of a book read). “Because the United States and Western Europe are not oral cultures, many people in these cultures struggle to understand how facts can be reliably communicated orally. But there is ample evidence that people who do live in oral cultures are capable of seemingly near-impossible feats of memory and accuracy. So let’s put this analogy to rest right now. Oral tradition has very little in common with the telephone game.” Mounce, Why I Trust the Bible, 10.

 

[16] Chart adapted from McDowell, Evidence, 40.

 

[17] Copied from McDowell, Evidence, 51. This is certainly not a comprehensive listing. Polycarp, Barnabas, Hermas, Tatian, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and more quoted the Old and New Testaments extensively.