Tag Archives: authority of scripture

Canonization: a case study in First Corinthians (Part I)

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This post was originally published on February 8, 2010. 

Seems that the issue of canon is a major theme in the the blog-o-sphere with another discussion going on here, here, and here.

These discussions all focus on the question “how do we know which books belong in the canon”? There are two important points I want to make regarding the canon before looking at the process and how I can accept a fallible list of infallible books. First is that God determines the canon by inspiring the author of the books. Second is that man is left to discover which books are inspired and therefore part of the canon. The question then is did the Holy Spirit aid this process and to what degree can we infer infallibility of the discovery phase. I provided some difficulties regarding the infallibility of the list here and here.

So how did God determine which books/letters were inspired? He chose and enabled a prophet/apostle to speak and later write what He revealed. The history of the transmission of the OT and NT demonstrates that God speaks through prophets and apostles giving them a message that is clear, confirmable, and unmistakably from Him. These prophets/apostles in turn deliver this message – Thus says the LORD – verbally to others. These messages are often confirmed with near-term prophetic fulfillment and/or signs and wonders. Sometimes the prophets recorded their messages in writing (Isaiah 30:8; Jeremiah 36:2) and other times they did not (Elijah). These verbally transmitted messages could be tested and accepted or rejected by the original audience based on criteria set out by the LORD (Deut 18:15-21). Once the audience was able to confirm the prophet/apostle as authentic, the future writings could also be confirmed. This is the basic process that was used to discover the inspired texts and correctly add them to the canon.

We will look at this process using the letter First Corinthians. As we look at this letter as a case study it is helpful to keep in mind that the church was not founded on apostolic writings but the oral teaching of the apostles (1 Thess 2:13; 2 Thess 2:15). A casual reading of the book of Acts confirms this as does that fact that the church existed for over 10 years before any NT book was written and over 60 years before all the NT books were written.

Before the letter was ever written Paul first visited Corinth after leaving Athens. He remained in the city for 18 months. While he was there Paul taught and testified that Jesus was the Christ (1 Cor 15:1-4; Acts 18:1-11). This would likely have been around 50-51 AD. The message Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians regarding Jesus was confirmed in the power of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:1-5). This demonstration is described in more detail in a later letter as the signs and wonders consistent with being an apostle (2 Cor 12:12). This is an essential part of the process where the Holy Spirit is confirming the apostle and the message are from God. This should not be under-estimated as even Jesus was affirmed through signs and wonders (Acts 2:22; John 3:2).

Think about what this would have been like. You are a Gentile living in the 1st century in Greece and you are out at the market when you see the posting – a new philosopher is in town and will be talking tonight at an assembly hall – for free. You decide to check it out. When you get there the teacher, Paul gets up and opens up the OT to the Book of Isaiah and starts reading from the passage on the Suffering Servant. He then starts teaching that the Servant that Isaiah was talking about has already come in the person of Jesus who is the Messiah – God’s Anointed One – and He has suffered and died on a cross as the one true sacrifice for sins that is once and for all – and has been raised from the dead.

As he is talking your child leans over with an inquisitive looks and whispers – “Hey Dad, Dad… are we gonna stone this nut after class”. As class indeed winds up and the families start heading out of the hall – some sizing up the stones and rocks that are nearby, they are approached by a common sight… Bob the beggar. Bob is a regular outside the hall, a young man who can not walk, and for years waits for those coming out of class to take pity on him and give him some money or food.

As the teacher – Paul – comes out the main doors into the crowd he reaches out to Bob and heals him in the name of Jesus – the same One whom he had just finished teaching on. Bob immediately jumps up, thanks him and runs down the street in joy. The crowd stunned, drop their stones. Your child leans over with a look of awe and whispers – “Hey Dad, Dad… Did you see that? Hasn’t Bob been lame for the last several years after that big accident? How did he do that?”. The next week the hall is packed as many come to hear from this new teacher Paul.

That is the picture painted of Paul’s ministry in Corinth. In addition to his preaching and signs, Paul also claimed to have seen Jesus raised from the dead (1 Cor 9:1, 15:8; Acts 1:21-22) and used his life style to confirm his message (2 Cor 1:12;Matt 7:15-16).

Before there were letters written to Corinth there was a visit to the city by a man named Paul. In Part II, we will examine how this visit leads to the writing and later acceptance of the epistle we call First Corinthians.

What’s in your Canon?

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This post was originally published on February 5, 2010.

There has been a lot of activity in the blogosphere regarding the canon of Scripture in the last few days. Two recent posts here and here from the Parchment and Pen blog and another here from the iMonk. In fact the first post from P&P has been going since Jan. 24th and still has an ongoing discussion in the comment section. This is an area of interest for me and so I have been trying to follow all 3 posts.

The discussion is interesting because the primary source (called special revelation) of information about God that we have today is the Scriptures. It is here that we learn Who He is, what He promises, and what His redemptive plan is. Certainly the Scriptures must be understood for what they are – God’s way of preserving revealed truth that gives us the wisdom necessary for salvation (2 Tim 3:15). Jesus, Himself reminds us that they point to Him who is the source of eternal life.

You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me (John 5:39)

The Scriptures are also useful for equipping believers for good works (1 Tim 4:13; 2 Tim 3:16-17). The question then becomes what writings constitute the Scriptures? There are many different views on the canon and many different questions arise as to how the church identified the books that are inspired and passed that information to us today.

The main questions seem to be:

  • which books are inspired and belong in the canon?
  • which version of the text was inspired and belongs in the canon?
  • is the canon closed?
  • are the answers to the first three questions fallible (capable of being wrong) or infallible (incapable of being wrong)?
  • who has the authority to determine/answer the first three questions?

As the topics raised by these questions are investigated we find many assumptions and a priori theological commitments rise to the surface. The area with the most tension usually revolves around who has the authority to answer our questions and to what level of certainty.

The Roman Catholic position asserts that we can have an infallible canon because the Church has apostolic authority that has been passed on to the Magisterium. This authority includes the ability to teach and interpret infallibly. Since the Church has this ability and has given us the canon of the OT and NT at the Council of Trent then we know for sure which books are Scripture with infallible certainty.

The Protestant position relies on the sufficiency of Scripture. It acknowledges the authority of leaders in the church but does not accept the doctrine that leaders have the ability to teach and interpret infallibly. However the predominant view regarding the canon of Scriptures (that I am aware of) is that the Holy Spirit working in the early church helped guide the body of Christ in choosing the books of Scripture with infallible certainty.

I have not been able to do much research regarding the Eastern Orthodox canon and how it is established. I have not found any council post the Great Schism that might have codified the Scriptures or whether the canon is considered fallible or infallible. Feel free to suggest good books or links that might help me understand this better.

All three major Christian branches have shared history in the early church debates over the Scriptures that occurred from first through fourth centuries. The debates, at least for the NT are largely settled in the local synods/councils in Hippo and Carthage where the 27 books of the NT were affirmed and where there is agreement between all. The major differences between the major branches appear in the OT canon. These differences include the books that are included as well as whether the Hebrew Masoretic Text or the Greek text of the Septuagint is to be used.

What's in Your Bible? Find out at BibleStudyMagazine.com

As a Protestant (who grew up Catholic) I accept what is probably a minority view – that the canon of Scripture is a “fallible list of infallible books”. This is based on the following two observations. The first is that the transmission of the books of Scripture can be demonstrated to have been fallible. There were debates in the early church over whether a small number of books should be included in our NT (2/3 John, 2 Peter, James, Jude, Revelation) and some of them were not (1 Clement, Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabus, Didache). These debates showed that various churches had different books in their canon for the first 400 years of the existence of the church.

The second is we don’t have a manuscript that would be considered inspired (and therefore infallible) that lists the books of Scripture and I don’t accept the infallible authority of the church (Magisterium). Therefore the list of books in the canon are a product of the early church that can be studied and affirmed (another post on that later) but is a fallible product produced by fallible man.

I do accept that the Holy Spirit through the church played a role in the preservation of both the text and books that were inspired. However (focusing on the NT) if the Holy Spirit did illuminate the church infallibly regarding the compilation of the NT canon then did He do this only in regards to the NT books? All the early lists that contain the NT (27 books) – Athanasius 39th Festal letter, Council Hippo/Carthage also contain the OT with the Apocrypha. It would seem that we (Protestants) would have to accept that set of books too based on this fact. Or we must be very selective in determining how the Holy Spirit illuminated the early church regarding the selection of one canon (NT) and not the other (OT).

Then we have to ask: how do we know that the 27 book list is the right list? Maybe the Holy Spirit was right in guiding the church in producing one of the other (and earlier lists) like the Muratorian Fragment which does not include several books in the NT that we do today.

I accept the canon we have today is correct based on history and thank the Holy Spirit for preserving God’s Word for us, while acknowledging that the process contained the possibility of error. It is encouraging for me to know that the early church was careful to test the books before accepting them and that gives me confidence that these were the words God wrote through His apostles to let us know He loves us and offers us forgiveness in Jesus.

Is the NT Canon a Fallible Collection?

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This post was originally published on January 14, 2009. It is the second blog post I published.

We have an amazing collection of 66 books in the Bible (at least in the Protestant version), but have you ever wondered how that collection ever got assembled? It can be an important question as the Catholic Bible contains additional books (Apocrypha) and there have been a series of critical views (from the DaVinci Code to various books by Ehrman) suggesting that the collection we have is incomplete or inaccurate. Many question 2 Peter is old enough to be written by the Apostle Peter others suggest that the “lost” gospels like Thomas or Judas were wrongly left out. So how do we know which books belong in the Bible? Can we accept the Table of Contents (ToC) in the front of our Bible as infallible?

As a starting point we would have to start by defining the Bible as a collection of books that are inspired by God. In order to be included in the collection a book must be inspired.

In stating that the ToC is infallible we would be asserting more than that there are no errors in the list (since I would agree that we have the right books and only the right books), but that there is no possibility of error in the list.

Since the Bible is a collection of inspired books, Geisler and Nix in their book “An Introduction to the Bible” rightly state that:

  • God determines which books are in the canon.
  • Man discovers which books are in the canon.

We should have no problem stating that the contents (at least in the autograph) of a particular inspired book (for example Ephesians) would have authority and infallibility because God was involved in the writing (determining). The authority of the book comes from God. The recognition of the authority of that book is done by man.

In order for there to be no possibility of error in the ToC, God would have to be equally involved in the discovery process as He is in the writing process to insure that was the case. However, we first have to acknowledge that there is no “list of books” in any of the books that are accepted as inspired. There are quotes and acknowledgments of other books as being inspired, for example Paul states that Scripture is inspired (2 Tim 3:16) and Peter affirms the writings of Paul (2 Peter 3:15-16), but we could not be certain what books are included in the Scriptures Paul refers to or which writings are part of the Pauline corpus that Peter mentions.

Second when one looks at the history of the discovery of the NT canon there is no evidence for a unified NT until the 4th century. The first evidence that we see the NT Canon containing the 27 books we have today and only the 27 books that we accept today is in 367 AD (Athanasius’ 39th Festal Letter). This list is confirmed in a series of councils starting with Canon 36 of the Council of Hippo in 393 AD. This is well after the Apostolic era when it is generally regarded that the inspired books are written.

Finally we must acknowledge that man is fallible. To describe any of the councils where the canon was debated and where the discovery phase was concluded (for all practical purposes) as infallible would be conferring the capability of being inerrant to people where only God possesses this ability. Since man is fallible it seems logical that the discovery phase was also a fallible process. There were no signs and wonders that confirm the process (2 Cor 12:12). Since it is these councils where we find the discovery phase completed, to acknowledge the NT ToC as infallible would also invite the possibility other proclamations made in these councils can be too. Why would the NT listed in Canon 36 of Hippo be considered infallible yet not the rest of Canon 36 which includes the OT and Apocrypha? What about another Canon by the same council? We have as much basis for concluding that Canon 1-35 are infallible as we do Canon 36.

For another view on the fallibility of the NT Canon check out Michael Patton’s post. He deals with the Catholic claim for an infallible list of infallible books based on the infallible authority of the church. For a contrasting view check out this post.