ARE THE BIBLICAL SCRIPTURES RELIABLE?
PART TWO
THE CHRISTIAN CANON:
Contrary to common belief, there has never been universal agreement as to what documents should be included in the Bible. There is no single canon of scripture that has ever been accepted by all of Christianity. Remember, the word canon is defined as a group of documents accepted as authoritative by some individual or group of individuals. It is commonly assumed that our present canon of 39 OT documents and 27 NT documents is what the Christian Church has always used as the source for its theological system. This simply is not the case.
To this very day there is disagreement as to what documents should make up the Bible. For example, early versions of the Greek Orthodox Bible did not include the Revelation although more recent versions do. The earliest extant versions of the Syrian NT, called the Peshitta, dating to the 5th century, excluded 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Revelation and Jude. These books have since been added to the Syrian Bible although some Syrian Bibles still exclude these documents. The Armenian Church Bible used to include a third letter to the Corinthians taken from a document called the Acts of Paul. This Church did not accept the Revelation into its Bible until A.D. 1200. Early versions of the Coptic Bible, adopted by the Egyptian Church, include the two epistles of Clement of Alexandria. Early Ethiopic Bibles include documents such as the Sinodos, a collection of prayers and instructions supposedly written by Clement of Rome.
All these groups look upon their particular canon as inspired sacred scripture. Establishment of what should and should not be included as sacred scripture has been an ongoing process for thousands of years. The first Epistle of Clement of Rome, dated around A.D. 95, is found in many ancient Bibles and was regarded as inspired scripture. The Didache’, a manual of Christian living which dates from the early second century, was regarded as canonical scripture by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. The Epistle of Barnabas, which cites many OT books by name and uses many phrases which appear in the Gospels, is felt to have been written somewhere between A.D. 70 and 130. This letter was included in the NT canon for a long time and appears at the end of the oldest surviving complete Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, which is dated from the fourth century.
One of the first written texts to become universally popular and an object of praise among the early Christian community was The Shepherd of Hermas. This document contains a collection of "visions, mandates, and similitude’s" which are also the names of the three books that comprise it. The Shepherd of Hermas was written some time in the early 2nd century, and there are papyrus fragments from that century to prove it. Some feel it dates from the 1st century. Both Origen and Jerome thought the author was the very Hermas known to Paul, (Romans 16.14). So popular was the Shepherd that it was widely regarded as inspired. It is included, along with the Epistle of Barnabas, as the final books in the Codex Sinaiticus. Hermas never names or quotes exactly any NT text. It does, however, contain many statements which resemble those in various NT documents.
As previously mentioned, Marcion, in A.D. 144, was the first to establish a canon which consisted of ten of Paul’s letters and parts of Luke’s Gospel. A man named Tatian produced a Syrian canon around A.D. 160 consisting of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He wove them all together into a single document. For a long time this document was the official Gospel text of the Ceric Church centered at Odessa. Some time after A.D. 177, a man named Airiness composed a treatise in which he quotes from almost every book in what is our present Western canon. He thus shows that the books of our present canon were in use at this time. Airiness also includes the Shepherd of Hermas as sacred scripture.
Around A.D. 200 we find Clement of Alexandria supporting the Titian selection and also acknowledging the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Apocalypse of Peter, Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache’ as authentic. The Apocalypse of Peter is said to have been written between A.D. 125 and 150 although some felt Peter himself wrote it. It remained in various church lists as a canonical text for centuries. The Gospel of the Hebrews was used as an authority in Syria as late as the fourth century.
In A.D. 230, Origen established a seminary at Caesarea. Origen declared the Gospel of Peter and the Book of James as trustworthy and approved by the church. He called the Sheppard of Hermas He also considered the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas as scripture. On the other hand, Origen doubted the authenticity of 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter. Origen also appears to have accepted much of the NT as it appears in its present form. Bishop Cyprian, writing in the middle 200's rejected Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John and Jude. divinely inspired.
In A.D. 367, after many additional years of numerous declarations of what the scriptures were suppose to be, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, declared what he thought should be the NT canon which reflects the text we currently have. However, there continued to be much controversy as to what documents should be in the canon and it wasn’t until A.D. 692, at the Trullan Synod, that the Athanasian canon became generally accepted.
At the Council of Florence in A.D. 1443, church leadership further ruled on what documents were to be considered canonical Scripture. This canon was made an absolute article of faith at the Council of Trent in A.D. 1546. This pronouncement, however, only carried in the Western churches. After the Reformation, the Protestant world followed the Catholic canon with the exception of the OT apocrypha which was excluded by the Protestant reformers. It is interesting that Martin Luther did not treat all scripture in the NT canon as equally valid and actually listed the NT documents in order of descending credibility.
The forgoing is but a thumbnail sketch of the dynamics involved in determining a NT canon. Much could be said about how choice of documents was often determined by the doctrinal perspectives of those making the choices and how church officials would change their choices as they changed their theology. Much could be said as to how choices were made based on personal preference rather than objective investigation. For a complete overview of the development of the NT canon, I highly recommend Bruce Metzger’s The Canon of the New Testament: It’s Origin, Development and Significance.
CANONIZATION OF THE OT SCRIPTURES:
The canonization of the OT was an historical process which took place over many centuries. This process involved in three separate collections of documents which came to form the Law, Prophets and Writings. The first collection to be canonized consisted of the first five books of the Bible and was variously called the Law (Hebrew Torah) or the Pentateuch (the five books of the OT). This collection was canonized about 400 B.C. The second collection was that of the prophetic scriptures which was canonized about 200 B.C. The Writings (Psalms, Proverbs, etc.) were canonized about A.D. 90. This last canonization was actually a ratification of a completed collection of writings in common use since the second century B.C. The prophetic book of Daniel was accepted in this final collection, having been earlier rejected for inclusion among the prophetic books.
History shows that, as is true with the NT canonization process, there were a number of documents that were variously accepted or rejected at different periods of canonical development. Around 250 B.C., the Torah was translated from the Hebrew into the Greek language and called the Septuagint or LXX. Septuagint means seventy. It is believed this translation was completed in seventy days by a group of 72 Palestinian Jews. The rest of the OT was translated into Greek during the next 100 years and came to include the Apocrypha, a collection of writings not found in the Hebrew Scriptures but nevertheless included in the Septuagint. A number of these writings are included in the Catholic Bible but have been rejected by the Protestant community. It is interesting to note that when writers of the NT quote OT scripture; such quotes are generally seen to be from the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Therefore, when NT authors quote the OT, they are generally quoting from the Greek translation of the OT.
To this very day there is not a unified canon that all branches of Christianity accept. While canonical history does show that the documents in our present canon were, by and large, recognized from early on, this history also shows that many other documents were also recognized. Christians lived for centuries using a great variety of documents to formulate their particular theological perspectives. The question that must be asked is whether the documents which where part of past canons but are not in our present canon are any more or any less sacred or inspired than our present canon of Scripture? Secondly, are we missing information that is vital to out Christian faith by not having the documents that earlier Christians had access too? What are we to conclude about the role of the Holy Spirit in the writing of the many documents that have been and are presently being used by the Christianity community? We will address these issues as we proceed in this series.
SUMMERY:
Let’s sum up what we have determined so far in this series. The Old Testament scripture is essentially a historical document. It is a collection of writings that reflect the development of the nation of Israel and its interaction with the nations around them. Much emphasis is placed on Israel’s religious and ethical system and how adherence or non-adherence to that system affected its survival. While the writers of these documents may have used a significant amount of figurative language and hyperbole in predicting and recording events, there is every reason to believe that the events recorded by these writers did take place and are not fictional fabrications. There is corroborating testimony from a variety of canonical writers, secular historians and archaeological research, that gives evidence to the essential elements of what is recorded in the OT Scriptural narrative being reliable information. While these records are ancient when compared to such recent history as the civil war, there is every reason to believe that the events recorded by the writers of OT Scripture are real events.
We do not doubt the basic validity of historical documents reciting the history of ancient Egypt, Babylon or other ancient civilizations. While we my not believe that all details of such histories are correct, we still accept them as reasonable reflections of history. I see no reason to treat the OT Scriptural record any different. There’s little question that authors of history, including Biblical history, are influenced in their writings by the political, cultural, social and religious climate in which they work and live. This does not, however, negate the basic facts of their histories. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given additional attestation to the authenticity of the OT documents.
As to the NT, it appears the NT were recorded within less than 40 years of the death and resurrection of Jesus and passed along throughout the centuries in a reasonably faithful manner. Yes there are inconsistencies in the NT Scriptures as there are in the OT narrative. We will deal with this issue as we move through this material. It should be recognized, however, that when it comes to the NT, there are copies of segments of the NT commencing within a couple of generations from the writings of the original texts. There are 5,664 Greek manuscripts or parts of manuscripts that have been identified, with the earliest being a fragment of the gospel of John believed to go back as far as the beginning of the second century. There are a number of Papyruses dating from the second and third centuries that contain sizable sections of various parts of the NT Scriptures as we see in our present canon. There is no other body of ancient literature in the world that enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation, as does the NT. These manuscripts do not vary appreciably from what we have today. Therefore, we can be confident the NT authors of record are the actual authors of these documents and that they were not written at a very early date.
CANONIZATION CRITERIA:
As already discussed, both the OT and NT canonization process occurred over a period of many hundreds of years and involved numerous inclusions and exclusions of documents. How do we know the present canon of documents best represents what God wants us to know and use to establish doctrine? How did we end up with the present set of documents we have that make up the canon? While the criteria used to determine what documents were to be included in the OT is not entirely clear, we do have a clear methodology extant for determining the makeup of the NT.
As the canonization process continued, determination of what should be included and excluded from the NT canon came to rest on three basic criteria accepted as foundational to this process.
#1: All documents had to reflect what was called “the rule of faith.” The contents of a document had to conform to what was believed to be the earliest of Christian doctrinal tradition.
#2: Documents written by those in close association with Christ or close associates of such individuals were given much higher consideration than documents written by authors further removed from the Christ event.
#3: A document had to be recognized and accepted by a majority of Christendom over a long period of time.
These three criteria for determining what documents should be regarded as authoritative for the Church became normative during the course of the second century and continued normative throughout the canonization process. On the other hand, there was considerable variation as to how these criteria were applied. There were different ideas as to which criteria should carry more weight than others. This resulted in different decisions as to the inclusion or exclusion of various documents for many hundreds of years. It should be pointed out, however, that the greater part of what is found in our present NT narrative was largely agreed upon during the first two centuries.
Documents such as the Sheppard of Hermas, the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas were ultimately excluded from the canon because it was determined they did not adequately meet these threefold criteria. Many other documents that appeared in various Church canons in past centuries also failed to pass some or all of the established criteria.
The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans:
A good example of how this criterion has been applied to arrive at our present canon is the exclusion of The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, which was for a time included in various Biblical manuscripts and survived such inclusion in some cases for over one thousand years. The epistle is some twenty verses long and consists of a patchwork of phrases and sentences found in other Pauline letters, particularly the letter to the Philippians. This epistle purports to be written from prison and expresses joy over the faith and virtue of the Laodiceans and exhorts them to remain faithful.
Even though this document contains phrases and sentences found in Pauline writings from the first century and is purported to have been written by Paul, the evidence points to it having been written no earlier than the third century which means it wasn’t written by Paul who obviously would have been dead for many years. Having been written several hundred years after the Christ event, it obviously fails the second criterion established for the inclusion of documents into the canon. While this document does contain material that is found in the canonized letters of Paul, it is apparent someone simply copied what Paul wrote.
Epistle of Barnabas:
The epistle of Barnabas was considered Scripture by many early Christians. It is found in the oldest complete Greek manuscript of the NT, the Codex Sinaiticus. This Codex also contains the Shepherd of Hermas which was the most popular of all ancient Christian documents that did not make it into our present NT canon. Why is it that neither Barnabas nor the Shepherd of Hermas is in our present NT canon?
The Barnabas known to the canonized NT was a companion of Apostle Paul and is mentioned 29 times in the book of Acts and 5 times in Paul’s letters. The epistle of Barnabas is nowhere mentioned in the canonized NT and the actual epistle itself does not identify itself as written by a Barnabas or anyone else who is named. It is anonymous. We don’t know who the author is. Furthermore, there is reasonable evidence to suggest this document was written around the year 130 or 135 A.D. which would be long after the Barnabas associated with Paul would have died. For example, in the text of Barnabas is a reference to the temple laying in ruins and an expectation that it would be rebuilt. It was rebuilt in part around A.D.130 by the Romans as a temple to Roman gods. Barnabas is extremely anti Jewish in its text. While some have characterized Apostle Paul as being anti Jewish because of his constant battle with the Jews over theological issues, Barnabas goes way beyond what Paul said in virtually distorting Old Covenant teaching.
This epistle does not meet the first two criteria for canonization. Therefore, the epistle of Barnabas, after enjoying initial acceptance as canonical Scripture, was ultimately rejected as it did not harmonize with the theology of the first century documents and it was apparently written around 100 years after the Christ event.
The Shepherd of Hermas:
The Shepherd of Hermas was written by a man named Hermas who narrates a number of visions which are interpreted to him by an angelic companion who appeared in the form of a shepherd and thus the title of the book, Shepherd of Hermas. The book is basically an apocalypse like John’s Revelation document. There were many apocalypse’s floating around in the first and second centuries of the church. This book was very popular and was included in various lists of authoritative Scripture. It was ultimately rejected for canonization because it was believed to have been written around the middle of the second century and therefore too far removed from the time of those associated with Christ or associated with those who personally knew Christ. Also, some of what it taught does not fit well with what is written in the first century documents presently included in the NT canon. Therefore, the Shepherd fails the threefold criterion.
The Book of Enoch:
Some question why The Book of Enoch is not included in our present canon since Jude quotes from this document in his canonized letter? The Ethiopian Orthodox Church does include Enoch in its canon of scripture to this very day. Enoch, actual consists of five books. The first book of this document describes the fall of the “Watchers,” who are believed to be angels who fathered the Nephilim spoken of in Genesis. The remaining books describe Enoch's visits to heaven in the form of travels, visions, dreams and revelations.
Western scholars currently assert that its older sections, mainly the Book of the Watchers date from about 300 BC and the latest part of the book, called the Book of Parables was probably composed at the end of the first century BC.
The complete book of Enoch is extant only in the ancient Ethiopic language. There are some Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few Greek and Latin fragments extant as well. Ethiopian scholars generally hold that the Ethiopian language is the original language of this document from which Greek and Aramaic copies were made. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church considers Enoch as a document worthy of being in their canon of Scripture because they take the position that this document was written by Enoch himself as the one and only full copy of this document still extant reflects ancient Ethiopic text. In their view Enoch is written in the oldest written human language.
The book of Enoch was considered Scripture in the Epistle of Barnabas, and by many of the early church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Tertullian. Tertullian wrote around A.D. 200 that the Book of Enoch had been rejected by the Jews because it contained prophecies pertaining to Christ.
By the time of the fourth century the canonicity of this book was being denied. Some even considered the letter of Jude itself not worthy of being canonical because it refers to what came to be considered a pseudepigraphic work, namely the Enoch document. By the 4th century it was mostly excluded from Christian canons except for that of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church where it remains to this day. It should be pointed out, however, that Jude quotes Enoch as if it is the Enoch mentioned in Genesis.
Jude 1:14: Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones.
From where did Jude obtain this information? What document was Jude quoting from? He obviously believed it was the Enoch mentioned in Genesis that prophesied. Did Jude have access to some ancient document actually authored by the Enoch of Genesis? Was Jude quoting from some later document that had incorporated this prophecy of Enoch into its text? Did God simply reveal this prophecy of Enoch to Jude? This brings us to the most challenging and most important question of our entire discussion as to the reliability of the Biblical Scriptures.
Just how did the information recorded in this collection of documents we call the Bible come to be?
Many believe what Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about scripture being “inspired” or “God breathed” is evidence that Biblical scripture came to be as a result of God directly managing the thoughts of scriptural authors.
1 Timothy 3:16: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (KJV).
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (NIV).
Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness (ASV).
The English word “scripture” is from the Greek word graphe and simply means writings or a thing written. The Greek word gramma, is also translated into the English word “scripture” which in the Greek means, “that which has been written.” Scripture simply means something written. The word “scripture” has no intrinsic meaning of being sacred or holy. This word can be applied to any written document. Biblical Scripture came to be identified as writing worthy of reverence and instructive of the things of God. Paul refers to the OT narrative as holy Scripture. The English word “holy” is translated from several Greek words that have the general meaning of something dedicated or consecrated to God and worthy of reverence.
2 Timothy 3:15: and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Romans 1:1-2: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God-- the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
When Paul tells Timothy the Scriptures are God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), he is talking about writings worthy of reverence that can be used to instruct. What does he mean by saying Scripture is God breathed or inspired by God? The word translated “God breathed” or “inspired,” is taken from the Greek word Theopneustos. Theopneustos is a compound word consisting of Theos which means God and pneuma which is the Greek word translated as spirit, breathe and wind in the NT. So how are we to understand this word? We will address this question in part three of this series.