Like
we mentioned earlier, the Old Testament and the New Testament are compilation
libraries of sacred writings written over long periods of time. Many of the
authors wrote the books not ever aware that we would be reading them nearly
2000 years later. The process of how the New Testament canon came together is
not one that many people are aware of.
While
the content of the New Testament may have been written over a period of time
lasting about 60-70 years, a universally accepted canon took over 300 years to
form. This process not only shows us how the various Christians accepted the
particular texts that they did, but it also shows us how the Holy Spirit worked
in the many Church leader’s lives to bring the New Testament that we have into
existence as an agreed upon canon.
The
beginning formative process started from the various oral traditions that were
conveyed from person to person, family to family and people group to people
group. To 21st century Americans this is a rather scary proposition
because we know how easy it is to forget our parents birthdays or which year it
was that we took a specific trip in.
What
we must realize is that the majority of the people living in the Roman Empire and
in Palestine were illiterate. It was extremely critical that they were good
memorizers of facts and procedures. Their very life and livelihoods often depended
on it. Whereas we in North America have ready access to information via the
internet, so we do not place much, if any emphasis at all on memorization.
The
first century culture demanded such memorizational skills for survival. Jewish
children were taught to memorize vast portions of the Torah (the first five
books of the Old Testament). This was the only way they could practice their
religion which was at the very core of their cultural and social lives.
This
is also why Jesus could quote the Old Testament as He interacted with people
during His Earthly ministry. He did not have to identify who He was quoting or
even that He was quoting their own Scriptures. They knew what He was saying
because they had more than likely heard it dozens and dozens of times and/or
had themselves already put it to memory. The oral traditions of reciting
history and various literary works and sayings were indeed procured very
accurately, especially when compared to the standards practiced today.
Another
evidence found in the New Testament that shows us that the Gospel of Jesus was
being transmitted through oral traditions and reliable accounts is found in a
verse in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul is speaking to the Christians in
Ephesus; "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." (Acts 20:35) When the four New Testament Gospels are read
beginning to end, we find that that quotation of the words of Jesus when He
said, ”It is more blessed to give than to
receive” never appears in the Gospels. Thus we can easily assume that the
only way Paul knew what Jesus had said was for someone to have told him
that.
Slowly
over time these oral traditions about Jesus were written down by those who were
the closest followers of Jesus or the people they were directly teaching. As
discussed earlier, this was probably happening for the most part somewhere in
the time frame of 45-65 AD. The original New Testament writers almost certainly
used papyrus sheets and rolls. [1]
These
documents were often copied and passed to neighboring Christian communities and
congregations. As would be expected the originals would often fade out of
existence due to excessive handling or environmental conditions not being
conducive to their natural preservation. Generally speaking those who copied
theses original autograph documents were very skilled at making very accurate
copies. They were in a sparsely populated trade that required them to be
extremely accurate in handling and duplicating any such documents.
John
Ryland P457 Papyrus
Today
we only have manuscript copies of those first and earliest autograph documents.
One of the oldest verifiable manuscript copies that exists is known as the John
Ryland P457 papyrus. The P457 papyrus resembles the size of a person’s hand and
bears writing on both sides. It dates to the early 2nd century AD –
approximately 120 AD. It contains passages for John’s Gospel. Ironically, the
one text found on the Ryland P457 papyrus is John 18:38 “Pilate
saith unto him, What is truth?”
Other
early manuscript copies include the Chester Beatty Papyruses P45 & P46. These
two papyruses are dated to the late 2nd and early 3rd
century AD. P45 records much of the four New Testament Gospels, while P46 contains
much of the text of Paul’s epistles. An overwhelming number of handwritten
texts are available for studying the New Testament in the original Greek.[2]
Today we have
well over 5000 manuscripts available.[3] We also have many of
the extant autograph documents of the early Church fathers and doctors starting
in the late first century all the way up to the time of St. Augustine n the
middle 400s AD and beyond.
Partial Chester
Beatty P45 Papyrus
These documents are
often called the patristic writings of the Church. There are so many quotations
in these patristic writings that if we didn’t have any Greek manuscripts, if we
didn’t have any translations into these other languages, we could reconstruct
practically the entire New Testament from the quotations made by the Church
fathers.[4] All of this goes to
show us that the New Testament canon was formed with an abundance of resources.
These resources are also the foundational evidence that the New Testament text
has been handed down to us very accurately since its formation nearly seventeen
centuries ago.
The
very earliest indicators that a canon of Scripture was starting to be formed
for the newly birthed Christian community of faith were actually found in the
New Testament. In Peter’s second letter we read; “Therefore,
beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be
found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our
Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the
wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all 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.” (2 Peter 3:14-16)
In
this text Peter mentions the letters that Paul has written. But then he
categorically equates Paul’s letters to other accepted Scripture when he says; “which the untaught and unstable distort, as
they do also the rest of the Scriptures”. This statement is highly
indicative that Paul’s letters were being circulated throughout the Christian
Churches in the Roman Empire and Palestine. It is obvious that they considered those
Pauline letters to be somewhat sacred and equivalent to the Old Testament
Hebrew Scriptures which had already been established.
It
is not until the middle of the 2nd century that we can observe some
very definable official efforts to formalize these written documents into a
universally accepted canon. Irenaeus, who was the Church bishop and apologist
at Lyon around 120-150 AD was confronted with the growing heresies of the
Gnostics. He set forth his apologetics for the true orthodox Christian doctrine
in writing so that other Christians would know how to discern genuine Christian
doctrine from the heretical practices of the Gnostics.
In
his writing he quotes large amounts of the texts that are now in the New
Testament Scripture. In fact, the only books that he doesn’t quote or make a
reference to Philemon, II Peter, III John and Jude. In his writings he also gave
some literary value to a book called the “Shepherd of Hermas” and to a book by a first century Roman bishop
titled “I Clement”.
Irenaeus
is probably most famous for his selection of the four New Testament Gospels and
defending their use in the Church and in the developing canon of Scripture. Irenaeus
was clear that there were four gospels which described Jesus’ life.[5]
These are the four Gospels we have and know today.
His reason for the exclusive use of these four
was that they were the only Gospels that gave the “passion
narrative”, that being the death, burial and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. This requirement is often referred to as the “Gospel
Criteria”.
He
defended the fact of four and only four Gospels in a proposed canon because of
the four living creatures around the throne of God listed in Revelation. Generally speaking, from the time of Irenaeus
the New Testament contained practically the same books as we receive today, and
were regarded with the same reverence that we bestow on them today.[6]
Around
140 AD a teacher named Marcion, who had been influenced by the local Gnostics published
a list of writings that he felt were adequate to be used by his growing sect
located in the city of Rome. Marcion despised Judaism and felt that orthodox
Christianity had not removed itself adequately from the Jews. In his canon he
included highly edited version of the Gospel of Luke and 11 of Paul’s epistles.
Marcion used Luke’s Gospel because it is the only Gospel authored by a Gentile.
Luke’s Gospel displayed the Gentile mentality in its text and rarely elevated
Jewish customs and practices.
In
the year 1740, L.A. Muratori discovered in a manuscript in Milan a list of the
books in use at Rome circa 200.[7] This
list became known as the Muratorian Canon and might very well reflect the
earliest standard acceptance of certain New Testament Scripture texts in
orthodox Christianity. Included in the Muratorian list are; the four Gospels (Luke
and John were named as such but Matthew and Mark were unnamed), thirteen of
Paul’s epistles, two of John’s epistles, Jude and one other book that bore the
title of “Book of Wisdom”.
Ultimately,
as the idea and process of the New Testament canon was passed down through the
next two centuries, a criteria for inclusion began to emerge in the Church’s
choices for accepted Christian Scripture. The three most influential aspects
regarding the various selections of the texts were first the timing of the
book. How close to the time of Jesus Christ was it first written? Generally if
a text was known to be written within the 1st century AD it could at
least be considered.
The
authorship of a book was also something that influenced the process of
acceptance. If the book was written by an apostle or a companion or direct
disciple of an apostle it was still a very likely candidate for acceptance. The
issue of authorship was thought to bring credibility to each accepted text that
was being considered.
The
third standard of criteria was whether or not the book in question was in
theological harmony with orthodox Christian beliefs and practices. This was
specifically critical when it came to salvation through faith in the provision
of God’s grace. This salvation was exclusively provided for in the death,
burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s one and only Son.
Another
aspect of criteria that was occasionally applied was how widely used and
accepted the book was by the existing Churches as a whole. There were well over
300 bishops presiding over thousands of congregations by the middle of the 4th
century. For example if only five of those bishops were using a particular text
in their worship liturgies and sermons, it would have had an impact on the
inclusion factor of that book to the New Testament canon as it was forming.
After
Constantine the great conquered Rome in 312 AD he began to befriend
Christianity. The following year after he conquered Rome he issued the Edict of
Milan which legalized the practice of the Christianity. The edict did not make
Christianity the new state religion, but it did bring the general persecution
of Christians to an end.
In
325 AD Constantine convened what today we refer to as the Council of Nicaea.
There were over 300 bishops invited to attend from all around the Roman Empire.
After much debate they were able to settle some theological issues regarding
the actual nature of Jesus Christ and the relational context of God in three
persons – the Trinity. They also formalized the universal statement of
Christian belief that we now refer to as the Nicene Creed.
Shortly
after the Council of Nicaea was concluded, Constantine decided to move the
capital of Rome to the ancient city of Byzantium (now known as Istanbul). He
did this so as to give a fresh start to the Roman Empire as it began to embrace
Christianity more and more. He laid the first stone on the western walls on
November 4, 326.[8] The city
would be renamed after Constantine, and would be thereafter known as “Constantinople”.
He
planned to build fifty Christian Churches within that city-state region. In an
effort to keep them uniformly aligned in doctrine and liturgical practice, the
emperor Constantine declared that he would sponsor the publishing of fifty copies
of the new Christian Bible for placement in each of his planned Churches.
This
series of circumstances created the uniformity that brought Christianity into a
foundational theological posture that could be identified throughout the Roman
world of the 4th century. By patronizing the production of Bibles
for his new capital, the emperor hastened the closing of the Christian canon of
Scriptures and help preserve a New Testament of twenty seven books.[9]
The
first list which has come down to us of the twenty-seven books which embraces
only those which appear in our New Testament is in a letter written by
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in the year 367.[10] Athanasius
had led the theological discourse
and development of the Nicene Creed at the Council of Nicaea 42 years earlier.
Now, his affirmation of a New Testament canon appeared to be the pivotal point
of its acceptance throughout Christianity.
It
was exactly three decades after Athanasius wrote that letter that a gathering
of the known Christian bishops at the Council of Carthage finally confirmed Athanasius’s
list of officially recognized books to be found in the New Testament. By this
time Christianity was recognized as the state religion of the slowly declining
Roman Emperor.
A
little over three centuries after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the
Christian faith reaches a level of establishment where it had a recognized
governmental system, a universal creed and a uniform canon of Scripture to read
from. Though Christianity would continue to expand and be influenced by the
local cultures and societies in which it could be found, the New Testament
canon has remained just as it was finally acknowledged in the mid 4th
century.
[1] Blair,
Edward P. Abingdon Bible Handbook
(Nashville, Tennessee, Abingdon Press, 1975) p.359
[2] Dowley,
Tim The History of Christianity
(Carmel, New York, Lion Publishing, 1977)
p.89
[3] Ehrman,
Bart D. The History of the Bible
(Chantilly, Virginia, The Teaching Company, 2005) p. 36
[4] Kennedy,
D. James Who is this Jesus? Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, Coral Ridge Ministries,2002) p.78
[5] Hill, Jonathan History
of Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 2006) p.68
[6] Thiessen, Henry C. Introduction
to the New Testament (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson Publishers, 2002)
p.10
[7] Mould,
Elmer W.K. Essentials of Bible History
(New York, Ronald Press Co.,1951) p.598
[8]
Moynahan, Brian The Faith (New York,
Doubleday Publishing, 2002) p.95
[9] Dungan, David L. Constantine’s
Bible (Minneapolis, Minnesota,
Fortress Press, 2007) p.122
[10] Latourette,
Kenneth S. A History of
Christianity (Peabody Massachusettes, Prince Press, 2007) p.134