The New Testament's profound impact is undeniable, yet it still elicits numerous questions about its history and context. The complexities surrounding the canon's genesis can be puzzling for modern-day readers. In 'Creating the Canon', Benjamin P. Laird sheds light on pivotal queries concerning the New Testament's origins and veracity.
Holding a PhD from the University of Aberdeen, Benjamin P. Laird is an esteemed associate professor of biblical studies at the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University. Some of his notable works include The Pauline Corpus in Early Christianity, 40 Questions about the Apostle Paul, Five Views on the New Testament Canon, and of course, Creating the Canon: Composition, Controversy, and the Authority of the New Testament.
www.ivpress.com/creating-the-canon
becomingoutlaws.com
00:00:00
The whole Bible is based on agreements with man over what we
00:00:05
would say a salvation or how to get man back in a relationship
00:00:08
with God. That's what it's all about.
00:00:10
Tons of stories, David and Goliath and all these stories,
00:00:13
you think they're all over the place.
00:00:15
It all has a tapestry that basically underlines that theme.
00:00:21
So now you boom, there's the Bible right there.
00:00:24
Gavin among the outlaws, he said.
00:00:26
Come follow me. People from all walks of life
00:00:30
since have been becoming our lawyers.
00:00:35
Welcome to another episode of Becoming Outlaws, which engages
00:00:40
celebrities, scholars, and other diverse voices in candid
00:00:45
conversations about following Jesus, defying societal norms,
00:00:50
and exploring profound and sometimes not even close to
00:00:54
profound questions of faith. Today I have one for you.
00:00:59
Where does the Bible come from? You ever think about that?
00:01:03
Seriously, where did this thing come from?
00:01:05
Like, who wrote it? Did it drop out of the sky?
00:01:08
The word, The server? The foundation?
00:01:09
I'll give you the basics. Then we're going to pull in a
00:01:11
professional. The word Bible is from a Greek
00:01:15
word, biblos, and it simply means book.
00:01:20
You think it'd be more profound, but it's just book, which is
00:01:22
comprised of 66 smaller books. Some of these are pretty
00:01:26
lengthy. Other ones are just like a page
00:01:30
or less. It's divided into two parts, The
00:01:33
Old Testament, the New Testament, Old Testament 39
00:01:36
books, New Testament 27 books. Or you can call it the Old
00:01:42
covenant and the New covenant. And a covenant in antiquity was,
00:01:48
you know, an agreement, like a contract made in blood, like
00:01:53
tribal people would do, super serious unbreakable.
00:01:57
So you have an old agreement with God and man made by blood,
00:02:01
and then you have a new one. You might recall the Last Supper
00:02:05
Jesus saying, this cup is poured out for you.
00:02:09
This cup that's poured out for you is the new covenant in my
00:02:12
blood. So basically the whole Bible is
00:02:17
based on agreements with man over what we would say salvation
00:02:21
or how to get man back in a relationship with God.
00:02:24
That's what it's all about. Tons of stories, David and
00:02:27
Goliath and all these stories, you think they're all over the
00:02:30
place. It all has a tapestry that
00:02:34
basically underlines that theme. So now you boom, there's the
00:02:38
Bible right there. And this story is told and
00:02:42
written over thousands of years through a tapestry of lives and
00:02:48
generations, written by various authors who may or may have have
00:02:52
never even heard of each other or seen other people's writings.
00:02:56
Yet the story is continues flawless.
00:02:59
The New Testament we're going to focus on today, like I said, is
00:03:02
comprised of 27 books. We call them books, but a lot of
00:03:08
them are like letters, letter length.
00:03:11
But who? Who put it together?
00:03:13
It's an annual. This whole book's an annual
00:03:15
bestseller for years. The truths in it or the
00:03:19
information? And it defines the calendars.
00:03:21
We live by, the culture we live in.
00:03:24
But it's kind of a mystery, so we're pulling in to help.
00:03:27
Joining us today is Benjamin P Laird.
00:03:29
He's a PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and he's an
00:03:33
associate professor of Biblical Studies at the John W Rawlings
00:03:37
School of Divinity at Liberty University.
00:03:40
And he just released this book that are read and it's called
00:03:44
Creating the Cannon Composition Controversy and the Authority of
00:03:49
the New Testament He had. He asked me to call him Ben.
00:03:54
So welcome, Ben. Glad to be here.
00:03:56
Thanks so much. That was a long intro.
00:04:00
But, you know, and I could ask you one question and then just
00:04:03
turn off my microphone and sit here and they'd be like, where
00:04:06
did the New Testament come from? But it's surprisingly lengthy
00:04:11
and complex, isn't? It's not not very simple.
00:04:14
Where can we start with that one?
00:04:16
I like to tell people that we need to start with figures of
00:04:19
authority. And a lot of times people are
00:04:23
surprised by this because as you mentioned in the introduction,
00:04:25
we often have this idea of a Bible being a a single book,
00:04:29
right? It's it's one volume.
00:04:31
We go to the store, we buy a Bible, we purchase one, purchase
00:04:34
one online, and it's a single volume.
00:04:36
And so we're used to. That kind of concept in our
00:04:40
mind, but in reality it's, as you explained, it's multiple
00:04:43
authors writing over many years in different places.
00:04:47
And so we have really a collection of smaller
00:04:51
collections of writings, each of which is comprised of multiple
00:04:54
individual books. So it would have naturally took
00:04:57
a long time for all this to come together.
00:04:59
But what I emphasize in the book is that one thing that all of
00:05:03
these writings have in common is that they go back to the very
00:05:06
first. Generation of Christians and
00:05:10
particularly to the Apostolic community.
00:05:12
So that's what they all have in common.
00:05:14
So when you think about authority, first we start off
00:05:17
with Jesus Christ, obviously, right?
00:05:19
He's the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
00:05:21
He came and he provided redemption for us.
00:05:24
And even the disciples, they they all look up to him.
00:05:27
But then Christ, his ministry is extended through the apostles,
00:05:32
and that's really a key point of the book of Acts, and we find
00:05:35
that elsewhere in the New Testament.
00:05:37
So the apostles are not just any just enthusiastic believers in
00:05:41
the early church. They are Christ representatives.
00:05:44
So when they teach they are representing Christ, they
00:05:47
actually perform miracles. And what's really interesting is
00:05:50
we go to acts when they perform a miracle, they would attribute
00:05:53
that to Jesus. So Jesus was the one who gave
00:05:56
them that empowerment and. Lots of the Holy Spirit,
00:06:00
obviously. In Acts we find that.
00:06:01
But they're going to perform miracles.
00:06:03
They're going to teach, they're going to proclaim the same
00:06:05
gospel that Jesus proclaimed, and they're going to reveal and
00:06:09
proclaim the fulfillment of what Jesus did and and explain its
00:06:13
significance. And so the apostles quickly
00:06:15
became the leaders in the Church if you read Acts and look
00:06:19
through the Epistles and their teaching then became recognized
00:06:23
as authoritative. So when we think about the
00:06:25
process of canonization, what it really is, it's not so much a
00:06:28
deliberation over which books do we like the most.
00:06:32
It really is, when you think about it, a a conscience
00:06:35
decision, a conscious decision of the church to recognize which
00:06:38
writings actually have Apostolic authority, which actually can go
00:06:41
back to these figures. Because if you can go back to
00:06:43
the apostles, then you're really going back to Christ is the
00:06:47
idea. If if you have a writing that
00:06:49
can't go to the apostles, then the chain is broken.
00:06:52
And you're not actually going back to Christ.
00:06:54
And then what we have are just man's opinions at that, which is
00:06:58
the result there. So.
00:07:00
So I would say Apostolic authority is, is key.
00:07:03
That's what really binds these writings together.
00:07:06
They wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit, but they're also
00:07:09
authoritative witnesses to Christ.
00:07:12
And so some of these writings were quickly recognized as being
00:07:15
written by the apostles. We don't find any dispute, for
00:07:18
example, that'll work like Romans or First Corinthians or
00:07:22
Matthew or John were, you know, written by the eyewitness
00:07:25
representatives of Christ. The 12 apostles are Paul.
00:07:28
But there when there was question about whether or not a
00:07:31
book is authoritative, really the question had to do with does
00:07:34
this book have to. It doesn't actually have
00:07:36
Apostolic roots. Can it actually be traced back
00:07:39
to the the Apostolic community? So it took a while for there to
00:07:43
be a widespread consensus on that.
00:07:46
I don't think this happened in one day.
00:07:48
There wasn't a decision that happened kind of on one-on-one
00:07:52
occasion that was instantaneous. So then everything changed.
00:07:55
As far as what people are reading said, it was very
00:07:58
natural process. It just took time because the
00:08:00
books were being written over a span of multiple years in
00:08:03
different places by different people, as we said.
00:08:05
And over over the early years though, there became their form
00:08:09
of consensus on which writings actually can be traced back to
00:08:12
the apostles. And that's what we read today,
00:08:14
so. I was encouraged people, when
00:08:16
you read Acts chapter 2 at the end of Acts chapter 2, there's a
00:08:19
really fascinating description there on the life in the early
00:08:22
church. And verse 42242 tells us that
00:08:26
the apostles teaching was one thing that the church devoted
00:08:30
themselves to is one of the four things that are mentioned there.
00:08:33
In fact it's the first one if I remember correctly there.
00:08:35
But they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and what I
00:08:39
think is really fascinating is that we can do that today
00:08:41
because we have the apostles teaching in written form.
00:08:45
We don't have the, the advantage or the benefit of having the
00:08:49
disciples be able to come to our church on Sunday morning and,
00:08:52
you know, teach to us in a live setting.
00:08:55
But what we do have are their written testimony, is their
00:08:58
written testimony preserved for us.
00:08:59
And so because of that, we can base our faith on Apostolic
00:09:02
testimony, which is just very crucial for us there.
00:09:05
So that's probably where I'd start answering your question.
00:09:10
Yeah, and you mentioned Acts, so it makes me think Acts is
00:09:14
written by Luke, Luke is written by Luke, who wasn't an apostle.
00:09:20
So what makes? How does he get that authority?
00:09:23
Yeah, great question. That's always one of the first
00:09:25
things people ask. In fact, a lot of people think,
00:09:28
well, I'm not so sure about this idea of Apostolic authority,
00:09:31
because as I look at the New Testament, we have several
00:09:33
figures here who are not apostles.
00:09:35
And that's true, but it's not true.
00:09:37
And we have to kind of think about that for a second.
00:09:39
There's, there's 8 authors in the New Testament, 8 traditional
00:09:42
authors, and some scholars will dispute, you know, whether or
00:09:45
not some works are, you know, the traditional authorship is
00:09:48
correct, right. But I believe like the early
00:09:51
church did, there were eight authors.
00:09:53
So that would include four that were of the 12 or Paul.
00:09:56
So we have four that there really should be no dispute
00:09:59
about their Apostolic Office. But then there's four others.
00:10:02
We have James and Jude near the end of the New Testament.
00:10:05
They were brothers of Christ, but they were not actually part
00:10:07
of the Apostolic community. And by the way, the James that I
00:10:11
mentioned is not James the apostle, and he's not James's
00:10:14
son is Ebony. That's James the brother of
00:10:16
Jesus, the one who wrote the epistle there.
00:10:18
So we have James and Jude brothers of Jesus.
00:10:20
And then we also have two Gospel writers, Mark and Luke, who are
00:10:23
not actually eyewitnesses, I should say not of the 12.
00:10:28
But in both of those cases, we find that these are not, you
00:10:32
know, somebody who's just fascinated by history in the 2nd
00:10:34
century or something like that, who was separated from what was
00:10:38
going on in the early church. These were actually individuals
00:10:41
who were very close to the apostles and work directly with
00:10:45
them. Mark, for example, is referred
00:10:47
to by Peter as his son in the faith.
00:10:49
So he worked directly with Peter, spends a good amount of
00:10:52
time ministering right alongside of him.
00:10:55
And Mark is not just simply drawing on.
00:10:58
Oral traditions or something, right.
00:11:00
Our disputes, of course, about the the source of the gospel.
00:11:03
But in the early church there was a widespread tradition that
00:11:07
Mark served as the the word they used was interpreter, and they
00:11:10
actually use a word that we get the word herbinudics from, but
00:11:13
Mark served as the interpreter. Peter.
00:11:15
And what they suggested was that in the final months, or weeks,
00:11:20
but in the least, in the final days of Peter's life before he
00:11:23
was martyred in Rome. He would share orally his memory
00:11:27
of the life of Jesus. And so there might be one
00:11:30
occasion where he would come out and, you know, speak in an open
00:11:32
setting and he would share about maybe a miracle of Jesus next
00:11:36
day. He might share about a
00:11:38
conversation he had with Jesus next day, maybe a parable or
00:11:41
something. But he's going to share a series
00:11:44
of through a series that he's going to share what he
00:11:47
remembered about the life of Christ.
00:11:49
And then Mark is simply recording this.
00:11:51
So when we think about it, Mark is really more of like an editor
00:11:55
and less is a less of an author. But the true source of Mark's
00:11:59
Gospel is actually Peter. So it's actually Apostolic in
00:12:02
that sense. So indirectly through Mark we
00:12:05
come to Peter and then Luke is very fascinating.
00:12:08
That's another subject. But Luke is drawing upon
00:12:10
eyewitness testimony. He's not just simply assembling
00:12:14
traditions that passed down through the church.
00:12:16
He would have actually been very well known to the apostles.
00:12:19
In fact, we know he traveled with Paul.
00:12:21
It's been a good amount of time with Paul, so he's drawing
00:12:24
directly from Apostolic eyewitness testimony and others
00:12:27
who are part of that early community there.
00:12:29
So you can say that all of the scriptures are Apostolic in one
00:12:33
sense or another, either written directly by an apostle or
00:12:36
indirectly through those who are associates of the apostles.
00:12:40
But they all go back to that 1st century and they all have
00:12:43
Apostolic roots. I think that's the best way to
00:12:45
explain it. Mentioning Luke again, it makes
00:12:48
me think you're talking about where he starts at saying that
00:12:51
he carefully went about. He basically did an
00:12:53
investigation, interviews Mary, the mother of Jesus, and gets
00:12:57
her accounts of the birth and all this.
00:12:59
And he, he puts together an orderly like a historical
00:13:03
account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
00:13:07
So with that thought in mind, when we talk about something
00:13:12
that is not just historical writings, but we're going to
00:13:16
call it inspired scripture, God's word, and then the
00:13:21
different views on, what does that mean?
00:13:23
How did God use man to write? And does that mean there's
00:13:26
errors or fault or were they kind of like sitting there and
00:13:32
God was using their hand with a pen?
00:13:34
Just what Luke said rules that out, right?
00:13:37
Because if God was just working right through a person so much
00:13:42
that they were kind of just a a physical entity that he's
00:13:47
maneuvering and writing something, there to be no
00:13:49
investigation needed. So it seems to me, and then you
00:13:53
can give a more scholarly thought on this, is that the
00:13:58
inspiration of scripture and making it God's word when it's
00:14:02
man's word, investigated about the life of God's Son is
00:14:09
inspired in that it's led and influenced by, and ultimately
00:14:17
all truth is written. But each man had his own
00:14:20
personality. He added his own intellect and
00:14:23
his own way of writing to it. How would you define?
00:14:26
It's not inspired script for. I think you're exactly right the
00:14:30
way you described it a minute ago.
00:14:31
In fact, I don't have it in front of me, but if you if you
00:14:34
go and Google the Chicago Statement, that's a famous.
00:14:37
Statement on inspiration that was drafted late 70s, I think it
00:14:41
was 1978 if I remember. I could be a year or so off.
00:14:44
But the Chicago Statement articulates has a number of
00:14:48
propositions as to or affirmative statements as to
00:14:51
what scripture is and what it is not or what inspiration is to be
00:14:54
more specific and what it is not.
00:14:56
And they emphasize there that it doesn't preclude the human touch
00:15:00
of the author. And I think we can observe that
00:15:03
just from looking over the text, right.
00:15:05
So if you're familiar with. John's writings.
00:15:08
You know that John's writings look and feel a different way
00:15:10
than say, than say, Paul's or Matthew style is a bit different
00:15:15
than Luke's style. And so we can see the different,
00:15:19
We can see the personality, the literary kind of character of
00:15:23
each of these authors very clearly.
00:15:25
So there's a human dimension to this, but there's also a divine
00:15:29
side as well, because the Holy Spirit is working through them.
00:15:31
I wouldn't say then that it is like.
00:15:34
Well, I wish I could remember the name of the artist, but my
00:15:36
wife showed me a picture yesterday and I can't remember,
00:15:39
but I think about 500 year old painting, 600 years.
00:15:43
But it is a picture of Matthew working on his gospel and
00:15:47
there's an Angel actually holding his hand and kind of
00:15:50
directing his hand. And that was kind of the image
00:15:53
that the author had, the the concept of inspiration of the of
00:15:57
the painter, whoever it was. Can't remember there, but.
00:16:00
I would say we don't need to have that kind of viewpoint to
00:16:04
affirm inspiration. We can still affirm that the
00:16:07
authors had their own touch, their own personality, their own
00:16:09
style, but also affirm that the message, the content did come
00:16:13
from God. I think we can affirm both.
00:16:15
And the challenge is oftentimes we think that one contradicts
00:16:18
the other and they can't coincide.
00:16:20
But that's true of a lot of doctrines when we think about
00:16:23
it. I could, I could pull up dozens
00:16:25
of passages that emphasize very clearly that we're accountable
00:16:28
for. Our acceptance of Jesus.
00:16:30
We must repent of our sins and by faith, you know, believe in
00:16:34
him. But there are also passages that
00:16:36
emphasize God's sovereignty and salvation.
00:16:38
And I think sometimes the problem we make is that we we
00:16:41
think it has to be A or B, and then we end up, you know,
00:16:45
holding on to these passages and then trying to explain these
00:16:47
others away. Or maybe the other.
00:16:49
Another example might be the deity of Christ.
00:16:51
He was 100% God, but he's 100% human.
00:16:55
And can we fully understand that?
00:16:57
No, because there's a mystery to the Incarnation for sure.
00:17:00
But we can affirm His humanness, right?
00:17:03
We can affirm his humanity. He had all these human
00:17:05
attributes. But the other hand we we want to
00:17:08
affirm His divine attributes. And we get in trouble when we
00:17:11
try to protect one at the expense of the other.
00:17:14
And I would say we actually have something similar to that when
00:17:17
it comes to scripture, their divine writings.
00:17:20
So we need to recognize that they do come from God, that God
00:17:23
spoke through individuals, as Peter reminds us, and as we find
00:17:27
elsewhere in Scripture. But on the other hand, these are
00:17:30
human documents that were written in very ordinary ways,
00:17:33
right? By ordinary people no less.
00:17:35
And so they didn't fall out of the sky.
00:17:37
They weren't delivered by angels.
00:17:39
But the content does come from God, but he used humans as human
00:17:42
instruments in the process. And so, even though we may not
00:17:46
fully understand it, I would say.
00:17:48
We always want to accept what Scripture accepts and what
00:17:51
Scripture emphasizes, even if we can't fully comprehend it and
00:17:56
expect it. And then and then because if we
00:17:58
don't, then we end up creating all kind of other problems down
00:18:02
the road, right? And at least other issues.
00:18:04
But we always start with the what scripture of firms.
00:18:07
And so we can see the humanity of scriptures, but also the
00:18:11
divine origin of it as well. So who put these things
00:18:14
together? So what 2/3 of these are letters
00:18:19
by Paul and if I'm not mistaken those may have come first.
00:18:24
I could be wrong about that. And and after So Christ died
00:18:29
around 33AD. The last book around 90AD is
00:18:34
Revelation. And what I find I think most
00:18:37
convincing is most of these writings are all of them
00:18:40
happened and we're being circuit not in a volume like the New
00:18:43
Testament but being circulated in churches.
00:18:46
And they were accepted at the time in a scripture so made them
00:18:50
canonized hundreds of years later.
00:18:53
But those books were written in a small time period by a small
00:18:57
amount of guys that were accepted as authority in their
00:19:04
own lifetime. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly
00:19:08
right. And so there's dispute about
00:19:10
when certain books were written, right?
00:19:12
And there's disputes about which ones were first and which ones
00:19:14
were last. And some of these works, I think
00:19:16
we can argue that they must have been written in a very narrow
00:19:21
span of time and we can be more conclusive about how some of
00:19:24
these fit. In others, there's debate like
00:19:26
revelation. Some people think it was
00:19:28
actually written before Jerusalem fell in seventy.
00:19:31
Others think maybe later in the 1st century.
00:19:33
And. Gospels, there's dispute about,
00:19:36
you know, Matthew and Mark and which one is 1st and when we
00:19:40
place them. But we can at least agree that
00:19:43
it was written over multiple decades in the 1st century.
00:19:46
So this was a long process. And after that, I think what
00:19:49
happened was, and this is what I get into in the book, what we
00:19:53
have are literary collections that begin to form and they
00:19:56
begin to form around the apostles teachings and the, I
00:20:00
should say, around individual apostles and so.
00:20:03
Paul at the end of his lifetime they begin to assemble a
00:20:07
collection of his letters. And it didn't take the church
00:20:11
23400 years to find these. There was no search.
00:20:14
You know where somebody's going all over the Med training world
00:20:16
looking for these loss letters of Paul.
00:20:18
Instead Paul would have likely had duplicate copies of all of
00:20:22
his works and so near the end of his lifetime there would have
00:20:25
been a release or a circulation. Then that started of the Pauline
00:20:29
letter corpus. So the collection of Paul's
00:20:31
letters and I I think that probably started in the 1st
00:20:34
century. If he died in the mid 60s,
00:20:36
there's a good chance that it started to circulate around that
00:20:39
time or shortly thereafter. We have a possible hint of this.
00:20:42
Peter actually refers to Paul's letters as being hard to
00:20:46
understand and he doesn't he doesn't identify the names of
00:20:49
these letters, but what's interesting is he does refer to
00:20:52
them as a collection and he assumes people knew about him.
00:20:55
So that would suggest to me that we have a a collection of Paul's
00:20:59
letters that is circulating in the 1st century and then from
00:21:02
what we can tell the gospels, we have 4 gospels that begin to
00:21:05
circulate together as a single collection in the early 2nd
00:21:09
century. And then we have Acts and
00:21:12
Revelation. They are recognized very early.
00:21:15
And then we have a another collection called the Catholic
00:21:17
Epistles. Catholic in the sense of
00:21:20
universal in scope or general and applicable to all this kind
00:21:25
of the sense of that. But these this collection would
00:21:29
would, it was comprised of the letters of James through Jude.
00:21:32
So we have 7 socalled Catholic epistles.
00:21:36
And So what what happens originally is we have these
00:21:38
smaller units to begin to circulate.
00:21:40
And that's one of the surprising things I think that is
00:21:44
overlooked. A lot of people don't realize
00:21:46
this, that we actually start with smaller collections, very
00:21:49
few people actually. And this is true not just in the
00:21:51
early church, but throughout most of church history.
00:21:54
Very few people had a Bible like we think of it, that is 66 books
00:21:58
and very few people would have even had a New Testament, which
00:22:02
is just very surprising. It's not until we have the
00:22:05
production of the printing press, invention of the printing
00:22:08
press that we have large bibles that have all the scriptures in
00:22:11
them. But for the 1st 1500 years, if
00:22:15
you came across Scripture, it was likely a small collection of
00:22:18
writings, whether it be the fourfold gospel, Paul's
00:22:21
epistles, Acts and maybe the Catholic epistles together,
00:22:25
revelation by itself usually. So we have these smaller units
00:22:28
that begin to circulate and that's how Christians read the
00:22:31
scriptures for centuries and centuries.
00:22:34
And so really our idea of the New Testament is just really
00:22:37
these smaller collections forming together to create one
00:22:41
kind of big book that we call the Bible today.
00:22:44
As you mentioned in your introduction, it's it's this
00:22:46
singular Bible that's just a collection of collections is all
00:22:49
it is. In Paul's writings, they're
00:22:55
letters. So you know, what's the deal
00:23:00
with writing to a specific person?
00:23:02
Or excellent Theophilus, even. What's that Loot gospel.
00:23:07
And is the idea that there really wasn't book writing then,
00:23:13
and you could. There's no public people forget.
00:23:15
There's no printing press until recent times, actually.
00:23:19
And so you get something, even the Old Testament, you had to go
00:23:24
to the synagogue so somebody could just read it out loud to
00:23:26
you. You didn't have a copy.
00:23:29
Yeah. So is the idea that that's the
00:23:31
thought as you, you put it to the leader in the community.
00:23:34
So you go ahead and address it to him with the assumption that
00:23:37
they're going to read this and share it with the community.
00:23:41
Yes. Yeah, you're exactly right.
00:23:42
So you don't have people going to the bookstore buying New
00:23:45
Testaments. What you have is in most cases
00:23:48
people are exposed to scripture by hearing it read.
00:23:51
And we find so many examples of that in scripture.
00:23:54
I mean even the time of Jesus. Think about the Sermon on the
00:23:57
mount. He addressed the crowds by
00:23:59
saying you have heard that it was said, not you know you have
00:24:02
read that it was said right but you have heard that it was said.
00:24:05
But I say to you, and James tells his readers, he says you
00:24:09
know, don't just be hears only, he doesn't say just be readers
00:24:12
only, don't be readers only, he says.
00:24:14
He comes by hearing, doesn't say reading comes by hearing and and
00:24:17
Paul is in marching Timothy to give heed to the public
00:24:21
proclamation. Scripture, public reading
00:24:23
scripture. So people heard the text usually
00:24:26
in the assembly of the church. And we actually have people like
00:24:29
Justin Marder in the early church telling us that when
00:24:32
Sunday came, the people would come from all over.
00:24:35
They would gather together in one place and they would hear
00:24:37
the prophets read along with the the works of the apostles.
00:24:41
So that's that gives us a glimpse into what they
00:24:43
prioritize in the early church and their their habits.
00:24:46
But if you're going to prioritize Apostolic writings,
00:24:50
then you have to figure out, okay, what are the Apostolic
00:24:52
writings then? And that's what the debate was
00:24:54
about and they began to copy and to circulate those works that
00:24:58
could go back to the apostles. So we start with this need for
00:25:02
material to be read in church. And there was this question,
00:25:04
okay, what? What's actually authoritative
00:25:07
then We're not going to come and just read anything when we
00:25:10
assemble. So we need to know what is
00:25:11
actually Apostolic. And so they began to really come
00:25:16
together and reach an agreement, began to reach a consensus on
00:25:20
which works actually belong to the apostles.
00:25:23
But an interesting point, you mentioned this idea, you
00:25:26
mentioned Theophilus and some of these individuals that we find
00:25:30
in in scriptures, which is just really interesting.
00:25:34
But what I find is, and I think this is widely understood but it
00:25:38
could be misunderstood, is that each of the rights of the New
00:25:41
Testament are really designed for a public audience, not for
00:25:44
one individual. So Luke, for example, he writes
00:25:48
the name Theophilus in the introduction to both of his
00:25:51
volumes. But this is not a private letter
00:25:54
that you know, the OR of private writing that the family of the
00:25:57
awful has just discovered, you know, long after he died and
00:26:00
said, oh, this is actually pretty interesting, this goes
00:26:02
deliberate. Let's let's start to circulate
00:26:04
this from the very beginning it would have been circulated and
00:26:07
the same would be true of even some of the epistles that we
00:26:11
might think are private addressed individuals like Phi
00:26:14
Lehman or First and Second Timothy Titus.
00:26:17
These are clearly designed in my view at least as public letters,
00:26:21
so it can be written to one individual or dressed to one
00:26:24
individual, but it was designed for a public audience there and
00:26:27
we can tell that from a number of of number of ways.
00:26:31
But they were all designed for public reading, for public
00:26:33
instruction and guidance and that type of thing.
00:26:36
And my view, I think Theophilus and I, I mentioned this
00:26:39
somewhere in the book very briefly, but I think Theophilus
00:26:42
was likely what you could call a literary patron, probably
00:26:45
someone of some means and had certain connections in the Roman
00:26:48
world that would have been very beneficial and valuable.
00:26:51
But I think he probably had something to do with the early
00:26:54
copying of the work because again, like you said, you can't
00:26:57
just heat up a printer and and print this in mass quantities.
00:27:01
You have to have people do this by hand.
00:27:03
It was a very laborious and time consuming task.
00:27:06
And so someone like Theophilus likely was able to employ or
00:27:10
enlist a number of individuals to copy the the Gospel of Luke
00:27:14
early on. So that would have got it out
00:27:15
there to the masses, at least started the process of that.
00:27:19
So I think that's why his name's mentioned there.
00:27:20
But all of these writings are, I think, designed for a public
00:27:23
audience. And designed for a public
00:27:26
audience but still then makes it more.
00:27:28
I shouldn't say odd sounds disrespectful, but strange that
00:27:33
a Paul like will end with specific readings to people no?
00:27:37
When he may not know this was going to go to billions of
00:27:40
people or had that thought of how extensive these writings
00:27:43
would be read and followed. But.
00:27:46
So and so did me wrong. And the Greek so and so's
00:27:49
brother sister-in-law. That makes it kind of strange.
00:27:52
But yeah, and once you understand that these were
00:27:55
publicly read, that sheds a lot of light on your reading a
00:27:58
scripture. So for example, Philippians, you
00:28:01
know when the letter arrives in Phillip Pie, they're not just
00:28:03
taking this home and reading this on their own in solitude.
00:28:07
This would have been publicly read before the entire assembly.
00:28:11
So imagine if you're there in the local assembly and you've
00:28:13
got, you know, Lydia over here and all these other people that
00:28:16
you read about in scripture, and then you get to the beginning of
00:28:18
Flippian's chapter 4, and Paul says, I think verse two, I
00:28:23
implore Yodia and I implore Sinta key be of the same mind,
00:28:26
right? And so he actually mentions
00:28:29
these people by name. You should called out for
00:28:31
squabbling. Yeah, they they were actually.
00:28:33
They would have likely been there.
00:28:35
And that's that's the case many times in Paul's letters, he'll
00:28:39
actually refer to people by name who many of whom would have
00:28:42
actually been in the assembly at the time.
00:28:44
Those could have been great, exciting letters they're about
00:28:46
to read. You could be terrified to hear
00:28:48
what? Yeah, absolutely.
00:28:50
But what's really interesting about Paul's writings, he's only
00:28:52
going to write when he's inconvenienced and he can't get
00:28:55
to a particular place at a particular time.
00:28:58
So, for example, he's going to write the Philippians because
00:29:01
he's in prison and he can't go and be with them.
00:29:04
So in God's sovereignty, he actually allowed these writings
00:29:08
to be produced just because Paul cannot be there at that time.
00:29:12
So we're we're beneficiaries of that.
00:29:14
Or in the case of the Corinthians, he's going to
00:29:17
address them because not only could he not be there at that
00:29:20
given time, but they misunderstood certain doctrines.
00:29:24
They had sin that they were tolerating and had they had
00:29:28
their act altogether, Paul would not have had to correct them.
00:29:31
But we kind of benefit from occasions when Paul had to
00:29:34
correct certain churches. But yeah, all the writings that
00:29:38
we mentioned a few minutes ago, all the writings are very public
00:29:41
in nature. And so he's addressing large
00:29:43
congregations, even though there may be specific individuals he
00:29:46
has in mind, but he's writing for the the benefit of the
00:29:49
entire community. Yeah.
00:29:52
On social media, whether it be Tick Tock or Instagram,
00:29:54
whatever, I always see there's an ongoing and I'll if you call
00:29:57
a meme, but thought out there, it's kind of trending that.
00:30:01
They'll show clips of how crazy some of our modern mega churches
00:30:05
are going on stage and their pastors flying through the
00:30:08
auditors. Whatever it is, and it always
00:30:11
ends with, Paul would be writing a letter right now, yeah.
00:30:15
We'll be getting a letter, yeah, and we don't know how many he
00:30:18
wrote. My guess is he wrote far more
00:30:21
than what we have in the New Testament.
00:30:22
But that was a that was a part of his ministry in providing
00:30:26
instruction for a church and called in just, you know, drop
00:30:30
in in a city and proclaim, you know the good news and then
00:30:33
leave and just forget about the the people there.
00:30:36
He constantly kept in touch with communities all throughout the
00:30:39
Mediterranean, provided instruction, encouragement all
00:30:42
throughout his lifetime. So quite a model for sure.
00:30:44
So when did 27 books come together as a cannon?
00:30:50
And how confident are you and why that all of them got in?
00:30:57
How many do you think got pushed out and why did the decision
00:31:02
made? Now's the time to do this, yeah,
00:31:05
those are all very good questions.
00:31:06
So the best we can do is look back at the Witnesses that have
00:31:10
survived and really Christianity, and there's
00:31:13
different types of this. So what we can do is look at
00:31:16
biblical manuscripts from early Christianity and we just have a
00:31:20
handful of them from the 2nd and 3rd centuries and then they pick
00:31:23
up in a bit a bit in the 4th and 5th century for sure.
00:31:27
But what what we can see is the the type of writings that were
00:31:30
included in these manuscripts. And then we have the church
00:31:34
fathers we have a lot of times they'll refer to New Testament
00:31:37
writings as scripture or treat it at least as scripture and or
00:31:42
refer to maybe they'll quote or allude to a passage and treat as
00:31:45
authoritative. And then there's another
00:31:47
category what we call is a biblical list.
00:31:49
So there's times we'll actually see lists that are developed,
00:31:52
and you may have heard of The Meritorian Fragment and several
00:31:56
others that are from the 4th and 5th century, but.
00:32:02
For those who haven't heard of that fragment, what is it?
00:32:05
You said the Miratorian. Is that the one?
00:32:07
Yeah, yeah. This is a text in Latin that was
00:32:11
discovered just, I don't know, 2-3 centuries ago in a library
00:32:14
in Italy, and it seems to be a list that goes back scholars
00:32:19
debate as to when it was written.
00:32:21
But most believe in the traditional viewpoint is the 2nd
00:32:25
century, although there are some who say no 4th or 5th century
00:32:28
comes later, but it seems to be a list that was, well, we called
00:32:32
a list. But the best word for this
00:32:34
description is probably Introduction.
00:32:36
It's really an introduction to the New Testament writings.
00:32:39
And so it'll name the New Testament writings.
00:32:41
And then it will also give us a little bit of background as to
00:32:45
just very bare bones kind of information.
00:32:48
And it'll mention, you know, who the author may have been and
00:32:52
some basic characteristics of it.
00:32:54
And that's really all that it does.
00:32:56
But what's interesting is it only includes 22 writings.
00:33:01
And so that is actually the core group of the New Testament.
00:33:04
So it includes the four Gospels, It includes the Pauline
00:33:08
epistles, does not include Hebrews, but includes the 13
00:33:12
epistles of Paul. And then it has a couple of the
00:33:16
Catholic Epistles in there as well.
00:33:18
So that shows us that even in the early Church and around the
00:33:22
2nd century or so, there was a core group of writings that were
00:33:26
recognized by this time. So it didn't take, you know,
00:33:29
till the 4th or 5th century. And then what we also find is
00:33:33
that we don't have any works that seem to be recognized early
00:33:37
that were rejected later. We have some examples of other
00:33:40
works that were read by, you know, some here and there, but
00:33:44
we don't have any works that are not part of the New Testament
00:33:47
that seem to be widely recognized.
00:33:49
In other words, it's it's overstated when people say that
00:33:52
certain books were kicked out or banned or, you know, something
00:33:55
like that, because no book outside the New Testament ever
00:33:58
gained the same degree of popularity as any of the New
00:34:01
Testament writings. Not even not even close.
00:34:04
And so, yeah, Christians have always read different things,
00:34:07
but there's always been a core group that was recognized.
00:34:10
And again, that would be the four Gospels, Paul's epistles,
00:34:13
Revelation Acts, and then the Catholic epistles.
00:34:16
That's where most of the dispute was about as far as development
00:34:19
goes. But for the most part,
00:34:20
Christians agreed that these works that can go back to the
00:34:24
the apostles are all part of the should be recognized as
00:34:28
canonical. And it's so important for people
00:34:30
understand that all of these books just summarize what you're
00:34:34
saying. We're recognized as authority in
00:34:38
the time of Paul in the Apostles and have been since, right?
00:34:45
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:34:46
So the same books that we recognize today?
00:34:48
Those are the same books that Christians gravitated to in the
00:34:51
in the early centuries, for sure.
00:34:54
So back to so when did they actually become a volume of 27?
00:35:00
And I guess this would lead into the incorporation of apocryphal
00:35:04
writings and such that's, you know, it's a big deal.
00:35:09
Suddenly will find a gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas.
00:35:14
And then all these secret things that we think people get modern
00:35:19
society, get so excited about these, either because they think
00:35:22
it's going to be new secret knowledge or wisdom, or it's
00:35:25
going to unravel the Bible because it's going to be
00:35:29
something different written by Thomas himself or Judas or
00:35:33
somebody the other side. But the fact is, isn't it that?
00:35:38
These are nothing new, and they were never considered
00:35:42
authoritative in their times, and they were shunned or banned
00:35:47
for that reason. Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:35:51
So, for example, the Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Thomas.
00:35:54
We don't have any indication that these were widely read
00:35:57
gospels. In fact, we knew about them.
00:36:00
But many of these texts were not even discovered until a century
00:36:04
ago or so. And so we we read about them
00:36:07
and, you know, some of the church fathers where they
00:36:08
criticize them but we don't actually have, you know, copies
00:36:12
that have been preserved. So that tells me that these were
00:36:14
not exactly, you know, bestsellers in the early church.
00:36:18
And the reason why is because they rejected the Apostolic
00:36:21
origin of these writings. So these are written long after
00:36:23
the fact. So they were rejected because
00:36:26
they don't have antiquity on their side.
00:36:28
But you can't argue that they go back to the the generation of
00:36:30
the apostles. But what it also tells me is
00:36:33
that this actually is evidence for the high degree of devotion
00:36:38
that the early church had for the apostles.
00:36:41
Because what's interesting is they these extra gospels that
00:36:44
you may hear about there, many of them are named after
00:36:46
apostles. So that tells me that there was
00:36:48
an early recognition and early value that they placed on
00:36:52
Apostolic writings. Fact that we have falsely
00:36:55
written or falsely attributed works is actually a good
00:36:58
indication of just the the the importance of the early church
00:37:01
placed on these works. You know, I think we, I think
00:37:07
you covered the the basics. Is there anything you'd want
00:37:09
people know that like we're missing.
00:37:11
It's there's a lot of information.
00:37:13
I mean your book is super thorough.
00:37:16
But if there's like a 62nd elevator speech of someone who's
00:37:19
a critic, and it's just that there's no way that these books
00:37:26
are authoritative or that they've lasted, or why didn't
00:37:29
they choose other books and? Even if it's everything we
00:37:33
already said. Is there kind of a 62nd elevator
00:37:36
speech for the layperson that can kind of just have a
00:37:40
response? Yeah, to kind of go back to what
00:37:43
we talked about earlier. I think it's so important to
00:37:46
remember just how much emphasis that early church put on
00:37:48
Apostolic authority and that once we understand that, the
00:37:52
rest of the process will make a lot more sense.
00:37:55
I think a lot of us in our minds, we understand that
00:37:57
Apostolic authority is important, right?
00:38:00
I mean, all of us would recognize the role of the
00:38:01
apostles. But when it comes to Scripture,
00:38:03
there's often a disconnect. And So what we do is we often
00:38:07
think, you know, I don't know how all these writings came to
00:38:09
us, but I'll just trust in God's sovereignty.
00:38:12
Or, you know, maybe a council in the 4th century decided for us
00:38:16
what we are to read and what we are to recognize the
00:38:18
authoritative scripture. Well, we'll just have to
00:38:21
recognize that God has actually given the church the authority
00:38:24
to to, you know, choose the writings and the book.
00:38:28
The Bible is a product of the church.
00:38:29
And so therefore the church had the authority to decree what is
00:38:32
authoritative. And I would say no, actually, if
00:38:35
we want to get back to Christ, we go through the apostles and
00:38:37
we have their teaching. And once we understand that, it
00:38:40
actually makes a lot more sense. Understanding the importance of
00:38:43
Apostolic authority actually helps to understand the
00:38:46
historical process. But it also helps us to
00:38:49
understand theologically why these books are important and
00:38:53
many more things we could talk about.
00:38:55
But that's that's one of the things I emphasize in the book,
00:38:58
just how important upslog authority is.
00:39:00
And then any kind of dispute about a writing tended to be
00:39:03
based on whether or not it could actually go back to the
00:39:06
apostles. That was always the disputed
00:39:08
issue and that's why many books were rejected.
00:39:11
They were rejected ultimately because you couldn't make a
00:39:13
strong case, a compelling case that they could go back to the
00:39:16
apostles at that time, so. I was certain, are you as a
00:39:22
scholar in this area, that we have the right books?
00:39:26
I'm very positive that we do. And I tell my students quite a
00:39:32
bit. I I tell them, you know, if you
00:39:34
can find a book that has the same credentials as the
00:39:37
canonical writings, I'll add that to my New Testament.
00:39:41
And then I also tell them, you know, if you can make a strong
00:39:43
case that any book in my New Testament is not Apostolic, that
00:39:47
it doesn't go back to the apostles, I'll gladly take it
00:39:49
out. And I often will repeat this
00:39:53
statement. I'll tell them that a book is
00:39:55
not authoritative because it's in the Bible.
00:39:58
It's in the Bible because it's authoritative.
00:40:01
And they have to kind of chew on that for a while.
00:40:04
Usually I get about halfway through and you know, with the
00:40:06
statement that if it's not authoritative just because it's
00:40:08
in the Bible, and a lot of times they kind of trip up on that and
00:40:10
say, think, wait, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
00:40:13
It's of course it's in. It's, it's authoritative because
00:40:15
it's in the Bible. But what we don't understand is
00:40:17
there's a recognition of the intrinsic authority of these
00:40:20
works. And then the collection formed
00:40:22
because they recognized that it had intrinsic authority.
00:40:27
And so books did not become authoritative on a particular
00:40:30
day when you know, somebody made a degree.
00:40:33
These are works that if they do go back to the apostles who go
00:40:36
back to Christ, there's going to be intrinsic authority to their
00:40:39
teaching. And so it was for that.
00:40:41
It was because of that recognition that the early
00:40:43
Church formed this Canon and elevated the the authority of
00:40:48
these words. Or recognize, I should say the
00:40:50
authority of these works then? Very good.
00:40:53
All right. Appreciate the information and
00:40:56
the clarification on a somewhat complicated topic.
00:41:00
It is somewhat complicated for sure and the more you dig into
00:41:03
it, a lot of times people don't know what the complicated issues
00:41:06
are. You know, we we might have kind
00:41:09
of a second hand knowledge of Ken and we might have heard
00:41:11
things. We might have, you know, maybe
00:41:13
on The History Channel or you know something.
00:41:15
We hear something about the Bible and we have kind of these
00:41:19
sensational claims we hear and we kind of think, well maybe
00:41:22
that's how it happened but you know, we just trust God kind of
00:41:25
thing. But then once you start to look
00:41:26
into the evidence, you find that it was actually a very natural
00:41:29
process and we don't have, you know, conspiracies and things
00:41:32
like this that a lot of people think.
00:41:34
But it was actually very it was a slow process, but a natural
00:41:37
process. And it's a very fascinating
00:41:40
subject. And so it's one that I've been
00:41:43
intrigued in for, you know, with for a long, long time.
00:41:45
And there's always more to discover, that's for sure.
00:41:48
Yep. All right.
00:41:49
Thanks, Ben. My pleasure.
00:41:51
Yeah. Gavin among the outlaws, he
00:41:54
said. Come follow me.
00:41:56
People from all walks alive since have been becoming
00:42:00
outlaws.