In fairness, there are quite vocal parts of the church who refuse to accept more modern and accurate translations of the existing canon. I mean, if the KJV was good enough for Jesus, what can we say?
I don't think trying to add anything new would go down well with them.
There is a big chunk of Protestantism that has hung its hat on the 66 book canon being divinely ordered and refuses to accept the role of the church in shaping it, because to do so would be to accept that the Bible's authority comes through the church, not the other way around.
Indeed, although part of me is still residually Protestant to give a nod at least to the saying, 'The Church through the Bible and the Bible through the Church.'
However we cut it, we can't have one without the other.
In fairness, there are quite vocal parts of the church who refuse to accept more modern and accurate translations of the existing canon. I mean, if the KJV was good enough for Jesus, what can we say?
I don't think trying to add anything new would go down well with them.
There is a big chunk of Protestantism that has hung its hat on the 66 book canon being divinely ordered and refuses to accept the role of the church in shaping it, because to do so would be to accept that the Bible's authority comes through the church, not the other way around.
Indeed, although part of me is still residually Protestant to give a nod at least to the saying, 'The Church through the Bible and the Bible through the Church.'
However we cut it, we can't have one without the other.
Except that the Church existed before the Bible and survived in places it was scarce or unavailable.
In fairness, there are quite vocal parts of the church who refuse to accept more modern and accurate translations of the existing canon. I mean, if the KJV was good enough for Jesus, what can we say?
I don't think trying to add anything new would go down well with them.
There is a big chunk of Protestantism that has hung its hat on the 66 book canon being divinely ordered and refuses to accept the role of the church in shaping it, because to do so would be to accept that the Bible's authority comes through the church, not the other way around.
Indeed, although part of me is still residually Protestant to give a nod at least to the saying, 'The Church through the Bible and the Bible through the Church.'
However we cut it, we can't have one without the other.
Except that the Church existed before the Bible and survived in places it was scarce or unavailable.
Don't think that's right, @Arethosemyfeet. The early church had the Hebrew Scriptures long before it broke away from the synagogue. The addition of Paul's letters and the Gospels plus the other books, did come later, true. But it aways had scriptures.
There was a move several years ago to place Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letters from the Birmingham Prison in the canon, but it was never formally proposed by any church tradition.
As much as I think MLK was a great man and those letters are really important, it doesn't sit right because the canon is about Jesus directly.
Those books deserve their own canon. And the church probably needs some kind of Talmud (I hope I'm not abusing that word) for all of the outtakes and extras we've accumulated over the centuries.
I must apologize for misnaming Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from the Birmingham Jail. I tend to mash it up with Bonhoeffer's Letters from Prison which I would personally want to canonize as well.
@Bullfrog, you say MLKjr's Letter from the Birmingham Jail does not mention Jesus directly. I hope you read the link to the letter which I provided above. True, Jesus is only mentioned once in "Was not Jesus an extremist for love. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you." However, the letter is saturated with biblical allusions. It is structured very much like Paul's prison letters; and it is grounded in the Christian Ethic of nonviolent love.
But, if you come down to it, several of the lesser letters of the New Testament have just as little of a reference to Jesus directly, if none at all. 3 John has no direct reference. Philemon mentions Christ in the salutations, but does not mention Jesus elsewhere. James only mentions the Lord Jesus Christ in the introduction, but has no other reference.
I was taught the letters in the Bible were accepted on the basis that they were written by an apostle with direct knowledge of Christ, though, some modern scholars now question the authorship of the pastoral letters, which we have been discussing above.
I would agree, we could use a more Talmudic level for such sacred writings too.
I mean they're not referencing the life and times of Jesus and the early Church.
That was, I believe, the point of the canon. They were texts attested to by the earliest apostles as authoritative in terms of Jesus' life and times, and the life and times of his earliest followers. And even there are some interesting edge cases...memory is hazy but there's one called The Shepherd of Hermas. And I've always had a soft spot for the Acts of Paul and Thekla.
I understand the authorship question, but as noted I'm not as certain of some of the uncertainty of authorship, not so much so that I'll second guess people who were a lot closer to the source than I am. I find the arguments for pseudepigrapha interesting, but not compelling, though I do look askance at 2 Peter.
But works from the 20th century, while very important, do not approach Jesus's corporeal life and times even remotely, so I think it's dangerous to canonize them.
Something like a Talmud just makes more sense. And maybe we should find a way to make better use of that. Though, I think a lot of us hardly have time to give the Bible the attention it deserves anyway!
Most of the canon is not about Jesus directly. Parts are, other parts can be seen to provide a link or insight into Jesus. A large part has no connection.
That on how you read it. There's a tradition that goes all the way back to Jesus himself that regards it as all about him--ancestry, typology, promises, prophecies, etc etc etc.
Then Jesus said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’
With the understanding that Law, Prophets and Psalms make up the three divisions of the Tanakh -the Torah (the five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim (the Writings).
I once asked the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware whether it would be possible to admit other apparently Pauline epistles into the canon if it could be proven that they were genuine.
He replied that in theory, yes, but it would require an Ecumenical Council to do so - by which I understood him to mean an Orthodox one. But he did say that RC and Protestant scholars would need to be involved and that it would be a matter for all Christian churches to consider and agree upon.
The byzantine Orthodox Churches only defined the canon of scripture at the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 (in response to discussion with Protestant Churches) . This was a local Council, but its decisions in this matter have been acccepted by all the local churches. No Ecumenical Council involved.
My point was that the late Metropolitan said that discussions at that kind of level would be required if the NT canon were to be extended in future.
Thing is, we might all have favourite material we would like to see canonised whether it be Dr King's letters or Bonhoeffer's writings as per @Gramps49's choices, or the poetry of George Herbert or G M Hopkins or the Easter Homily of St John Chrysostom or whatever else.
Who'd decide?
Who would have the casting vote?
What if someone wanted the writings of Mary Baker Eddy canonised, or something by Joel Osteen or even less contentious material such as Spurgeon's sermons included?
Apparently the Serbian Patriarch authorised the latter to be read in churches in his jurisdiction, so they do have an appeal beyond their original constituency.
But to get a consensus on any of these things would be harder than achieving a consensus on the Top 20 pop songs of all times or the best ever films or novels.
The criterion for the Old Testament varies between churches, but the Latin OT is the Septuagint, and Protestants limit it further to books unequivocally accepted by Jewish tradition (I believe the RC also traditionally thought they had more authority).
The criterion for the NT was books believes to be written by the Apostles or by disciples of the apostles based directly on the Apostles' testimony. A Council could remove books from the canon if one thought books were there in error, but it couldn't add later books without changing the rationale for the collection.
One could I suppose create a third anthology.
@Ruth s comment is very valid. I think there is an argument that women were rarely literate and a book written by a woman would not have been taken seriously by the culture. at the time. So only the men wrote or were attributed.
But that doesn't answer anything in fact. All it says is that the society that all of this was written in rejected the education of women, dismissed them, treated them like dirt. And some of this is reflected in the writings.
But to separate it out as cultural is important, because then it says that this is not for us to follow. And it says that the culture is not one we need to reflect. And it tells us that those passages where women are raised up and exalted for what they say or do (Deborah, Priscilla, Miriam) are really significant as being counter-cultural references.
"All" it says is that women were treated like dirt? I can't just separate that out as merely "cultural." Teachers and purported sages who talked about how people should live their lives but did not recognize the humanity of more than half the people around them are hard for me to take seriously. The counter-cultural references are important, but not enough to save the traditions for me.
Not meaning to trivialise it. In context, I meant we shouldn't take their culture as one to emulate. I meant we needed to understand that the people writing were limited.
There is often things we can learn from seriously flawed people. But it is critical to understand their flaws.
Traditions have - far too often - taken the flaws and elevated them to Divine law.
(Ruth, you are always awesome, and always valid in your points. Never want to upset you.)
Then Jesus said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’
With the understanding that Law, Prophets and Psalms make up the three divisions of the Tanakh -the Torah (the five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim (the Writings).
Luke's "everything written about me" implies that Luke perceives that there were parts, a subset, of those writings that were about Jesus, and Luke was likely written no earlier than AD 70.
Note that (from Wikipedia) there is more than Psalms in the Ketuvim.
The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in the Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles.[6]
In Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, and Ezra
There was a move several years ago to place Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letters from the Birmingham Prison in the canon, but it was never formally proposed by any church tradition.
Was there more to this “move several years ago” than what is reflected in the article to which you linked? Because the only thing the writer of that article says about adding the Letter from Birmingham Jail to the canon is this:
I have long thought that if the canon of Scripture was ever re-opened, Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail should be the top candidate for addition.
I would think that a “move . . . to place” the Letter in the canon of Scripture would mean organized efforts advocating for both (re)opening the canon and for adding the letter, and taking concrete actions to try and make that happen, like petitioning decision-making bodies. This is just one person saying that if the canon is reopened, she’d like to see the Letter added to it.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
The trouble comes in when Christ himself does it: remember the sign of Jonah? Matthew 12: 39-41
As for Song of Songs, even the first chapter hints at the identity of the bridegroom: 1:3 reads "your name is oil poured out" which is a decent rendering of the Hebrew term "Messiah" or in Greek "Christ."
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
The trouble comes in when Christ himself does it: remember the sign of Jonah? Matthew 12: 39-41
Sometimes you find an actual nail. I think there's a difference between (with apologies to professor Tolkien) applicability and allegory, however. You obviously can read Song of Songs as allegorical of Christ's love for the Church but to teach it as "the" way to understand it is stretching things too far.
Much as I enjoy singing "Ezechiēlis porta" I find it hard to convince myself that Ezekiel's sealed door is a reference to the BVM.
The trouble is this stuff is very culturally dependent. Both Jews and Christians have interpreted the Song that way, and there are interpretations of many OT passages even in the New Testament that make me screw up my face and say "How'd you get THAT?" when the author (and presumably a great many of his hearers) would say "It's obvious, duh."
There was a move several years ago to place Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letters from the Birmingham Prison in the canon, but it was never formally proposed by any church tradition.
Was there more to this “move several years ago” than what is reflected in the article to which you linked? Because the only thing the writer of that article says about adding the Letter from Birmingham Jail to the canon is this:
I have long thought that if the canon of Scripture was ever re-opened, Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail should be the top candidate for addition.
I would think that a “move . . . to place” the Letter in the canon of Scripture would mean organized efforts advocating for both (re)opening the canon and for adding the letter, and taking concrete actions to try and make that happen, like petitioning decision-making bodies. This is just one person saying that if the canon is reopened, she’d like to see the Letter added to it.
Other than several black ministers calling the Letter from the Birmingham Jail an epistle for modern times, there has been no formal move to insert it into the canon. However, it is often referred to as a classic of Christian ethics, much like Augustine's Confessions.
I'm curious about Shipmates' thoughts re: 1 Timothy, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, Colossians, Titus, and Ephesians from the standpoints about what we in this modern age think we know about them, an what if anything could/should be done about that knowledge. This isn't a new issue, but I'm wondering if, in general, we value them in the same way we do the undisputed letters. Does this critical scholarship even matter? Especially re: passages that many find problematic -- in short, Paul's misogyny -- would the Bible be improved by their removal? Is the canon-icity of the Bible important enough to discard this scholarship out of hand?
The Pauline books-- at least those letters you reference as being undisputedly attributed to Paul are almost unique in that assertion, while several of the remaining New Testament writings are author unknown. Even the gospels are in this category, where we don't really know definitively who wrote them, they are considered anonymous and though they bear a name, it could well be a pseudonym, or simply an associated assignment.
No one assumes Moby Dick was written by the sperm whale of that name.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
The trouble comes in when Christ himself does it: remember the sign of Jonah? Matthew 12: 39-41
Sometimes you find an actual nail. I think there's a difference between (with apologies to professor Tolkien) applicability and allegory, however. You obviously can read Song of Songs as allegorical of Christ's love for the Church but to teach it as "the" way to understand it is stretching things too far.
Much as I enjoy singing "Ezechiēlis porta" I find it hard to convince myself that Ezekiel's sealed door is a reference to the BVM.
I struggle with that, 'Tell it not in Gath.'
It's to do with the way the Orthodox, and presumably the RCs ? - do hermeneutics.
I'm happy to along with it provided we are not saying it's what the original authors had in mind.
Equally, I've yet to be convinced that all the names of 'The Seventy' are actually their names. It looks to me as if someone's hoovered up whatever names are floating around in the NT and thought, 'Right, they must be one of the 70 ...'
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
The trouble comes in when Christ himself does it: remember the sign of Jonah? Matthew 12: 39-41
Sometimes you find an actual nail. I think there's a difference between (with apologies to professor Tolkien) applicability and allegory, however. You obviously can read Song of Songs as allegorical of Christ's love for the Church but to teach it as "the" way to understand it is stretching things too far.
Much as I enjoy singing "Ezechiēlis porta" I find it hard to convince myself that Ezekiel's sealed door is a reference to the BVM.
I struggle with that, 'Tell it not in Gath.'
It's to do with the way the Orthodox, and presumably the RCs ? - do hermeneutics.
I'm happy to along with it provided we are not saying it's what the original authors had in mind.
Equally, I've yet to be convinced that all the names of 'The Seventy' are actually their names. It looks to me as if someone's hoovered up whatever names are floating around in the NT and thought, 'Right, they must be one of the 70 ...'
Onesimus is one of them. Was he or wasn't he?
But it makes for a colourful church life.
They haven't thrown me out yet.
@Gamma Gamaliel Just keep dancing on the edge, as they would say in seminary.
The Pauline books-- at least those letters you reference as being undisputedly attributed to Paul are almost unique in that assertion, while several of the remaining New Testament writings are author unknown. Even the gospels are in this category, where we don't really know definitively who wrote them, they are considered anonymous and though they bear a name, it could well be a pseudonym, or simply an associated assignment.
I think that there is a strong but unjustified tendency to go from 'we don't know definitively that the earliest ascriptions of authorship are true' to 'they could well not be true'. Most of the arguments against the early ascriptions are I think based on a priori arguments about what could be early or late which are then read back into the evidence.
That said, one has to be careful about what the early assignments of authorship are, given that lots of known early Christians share the same few names, and later tradition tended to simplify things by conflating Johns and Marks and Marys.
The early assignments are:
Matthew: anonymous, but based on or including a document by the apostle Matthew that recorded Jesus' sayings.
Mark: a companion of Peter, but not necessarily the John Mark of Acts.
Luke: a companion of Paul.
John: the teacher of Polycarp, a disciple of Jesus, who was not one of the Apostles.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
I understand these things to be both foreshadowings of Christ and also other things on other levels.
The Pauline books-- at least those letters you reference as being undisputedly attributed to Paul are almost unique in that assertion, while several of the remaining New Testament writings are author unknown. Even the gospels are in this category, where we don't really know definitively who wrote them, they are considered anonymous and though they bear a name, it could well be a pseudonym, or simply an associated assignment.
I think that there is a strong but unjustified tendency to go from 'we don't know definitively that the earliest ascriptions of authorship are true' to 'they could well not be true'. Most of the arguments against the early ascriptions are I think based on a priori arguments about what could be early or late which are then read back into the evidence.
That said, one has to be careful about what the early assignments of authorship are, given that lots of known early Christians share the same few names, and later tradition tended to simplify things by conflating Johns and Marks and Marys.
The early assignments are:
Matthew: anonymous, but based on or including a document by the apostle Matthew that recorded Jesus' sayings.
Mark: a companion of Peter, but not necessarily the John Mark of Acts.
Luke: a companion of Paul. John: the teacher of Polycarp, a disciple of Jesus, who was not one of the Apostles.
A bit of clarification on John. The ancient sources say the Gospel was written by the apostle of John. The key source is Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (late 2nd century), who explicitly says:
Polycarp was taught by “John, the disciple of the Lord.”
This John lived into old age in Ephesus.
This John was the one who “leaned on the Lord’s breast” (a Johannine identifier).
This John was the one who wrote the Gospel.
That said, The modern theory is that the Gospel of John was written within a Johannine community. The text not as the product of a single author writing in isolation, but as the culmination of a long process of memory, interpretation, conflict, and theological reflection within a distinct network of Jesus‑followers. Three major scholars—Raymond E. Brown, J. Louis Martyn, and Francis J. Moloney—offer the clearest articulation of this model.
If this is true, then there was a strong feminine voice within the community. You can see it in the way feminine characters were presented within the book of John. I would go so far as to say, certain stories, like the crucifixion and the resurrection was told by a woman.
John: the teacher of Polycarp, a disciple of Jesus, who was not one of the Apostles.
A bit of clarification on John. The ancient sources say the Gospel was written by the apostle of John. The key source is Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (late 2nd century), who explicitly says:
Polycarp was taught by “John, the disciple of the Lord.”
It seems to me that if John the Apostle, one of the twelve, was meant, then Irenaeus could have explicitly said one of the twelve. The use of a lesser title implies that is the only title. That there was more than one John among Jesus' disciples is quite possible; John was a common name.
My source for this is Bauckham, in his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. He argues that when Irenaeus refers to the John who was one of the Twelve, he uses 'Son of Zebedee,' presumably as an aid to disambiguation. The one who leaned on the Lord's breast is a common descriptor of the author of the Gospel among early Christian writers, but is, Bauckham says, not ever used in cases where the Son of Zebedee is clearly the one referred to. Bauckham says that Irenaeus does on occasion refer to the writer of the gospel as an apostle, but that he calls a lot of people, who were not members of the twelve, such as Barnabas and John the Baptist, apostles too.
Chronicles, Jonah, Job, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs?
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
I'm referring to the formulation of the canon back in the third century, specifically the New Testament. My recollection from a class in seminary was that the folks who decided the canon did have a specific list of qualifications and a specific list of texts they applied them to. But they mostly accepted the Tanakh of the time as it was. And Protestants shortened it because Luther talked to some rabbis in the middle ages and took their advice as to which texts were authoritative when Jesus was alive.
This is all from recollection, I'll happily take fact checks.
I understood that the LXX was accepted as the Tanakh.
My understanding is that the Septuagint was the basis of the Eastern Orthodox canon as well as of the Vulgate and of the RC canon, and that the deuterocanonical books were included in the Septuagint, but were not included in or accepted as part of the Hebrew canon, at least not uniformly so. The deuterocanonical books have never been part of the rabbinical canon and are not included in the current Tanakh.
I think another factor playing in to the Lutheran view of the deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha is Jesus' non-use of them as quoted in the Gospels--I think there might (might) have been a single reference in the NT, and that not by Jesus. Can anyone speak to this better?
I think another factor playing in to the Lutheran view of the deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha is Jesus' non-use of them as quoted in the Gospels--I think there might (might) have been a single reference in the NT, and that not by Jesus. Can anyone speak to this better?
I don't know specifics, but it would make sense since the events in those texts were still relatively recent history when he was alive. They wouldn't have had time to settle into the "Scripture" yet, which agrees with what (I was told) the rabbis told Luther.
I'd be happy if someone here had closer contact in general with the scholarship of how the Christian canon was formed in the first place. I know we talked about it in seminary, and my prof was a Roman Catholic who had a passion for early history, but I don't remember close details.
By the end of the first century the books had been written. Around 140 Marcion's canon forced the church to articulate the books which expressed the fullness of the faith. The full list of accepted books is found in the Muratorian Fragment at the end of the 2nd Century but the final stage of formation recognized by the Council of Hippo in 393 and the Council of Carthage in 397 as I recall (actually looked at some notes from seminary).
Then Jesus said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’
With the understanding that Law, Prophets and Psalms make up the three divisions of the Tanakh -the Torah (the five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim (the Writings).
Luke's "everything written about me" implies that Luke perceives that there were parts, a subset, of those writings that were about Jesus, and Luke was likely written no earlier than AD 70.
I think it reflects an understanding common in Second Temple Judaism that the whole of (the Hebrew) Scriptures pointed to the coming of the Messiah, coupled with the NT writers’ conviction that Jesus was the Messiah to whom the Scriptures pointed.
Note that (from Wikipedia) there is more than Psalms in the Ketuvim.
Yes, but as Psalms is the first book of the Ketuvim, “the Psalms” has traditionally been used as a synecdoche for the Ketuvim. That’s how it appears to be used in the passage from Luke that @Anna_Baptist quotes.
Certainly not. In a lot of cases you're right in the middle.
Ha ha!
Well, plenty of Shipmates were urging me to come down off the fence to ease my calloused backside and give them a break from my internal monologues as I moved from an evangelical to a post-evangelical position to where I am now.
I know I clash with you @Arethosemyfeet and @chrisstiles on politics occasionally but often find myself in broad agreement on some issues.
Anyhow ... on the issue of the canon, I wish I could speak more knowledgeably on the issue.
I've not been to seminary or received formal theological training but I'm broadly aware of the arguments on the Protestant side as well as the Orthodox and RC positions.
I have come down on a particular 'side' of course.
I don't think it's a 'both-sides-ism' response to say that we all need to steer clear of popular caricatures that represent on the one hand, the idea that the 'deutero-canonical' books are somehow tainted, twisted and evil (I've come across this) or that the Reformers wickedly tore chunks out of the 'received' scriptures because they were arrogant and thought they knew better than Holy Church.
Confession time.
I've not read Tobit and Maccabees yet.
Perhaps that should form part of my Lenten discipline this year.
Concerning the Gospels, it is supposed that the date of writing spans perhaps from 65-100 AD (consensus thinking). Mark is thought to be the earliest, with Matthew and Luke relying heavily on material from it, but still-- this is all assumption. The reality, authorship versus ascription questions aside, is that the stories were likely compilations, told and retold for years before they were written down, and certainly before they were assembled together in 'books' that were then attributed to names of particular disciples of Jesus.
That there are similarities with one account and another as well as divergence from one another shouldn't be surprising whatsoever.
Circling back to the OP and Paul's letters, there is little doubt with respect to the time of writing nor the authorship. I personally don't find the argument against to be very compelling.
There seems to be little to no concern about who put together our (now) widely accepted canon. I'm not sure why this idea should be so concerning today. Unless the Spirit isn't moving in and working through hearts and minds as it once did. I suppose that's as likely as anything else.
I s'pose my point is that as soon as someone seriously suggested adding Dr MLK or Bonhoeffer to the canon, there'd immediately be objections or suggestions such as, why not the hagiographies about St Francis of Assisi, or St Theresa of Avila's writings on the 'Interior Castle' or Julian of Norwich or The Philokalia or ...
Nobody is suggesting that the Holy Spirit isn't working through hearts and minds today.
But achieving a consensus on 'additions' to the generally accepted NT canon ain't going to gain traction.
Besides, we have enough on trying to deal with what's there without adding more material to the mix.
I s'pose my point is that as soon as someone seriously suggested adding Dr MLK or Bonhoeffer to the canon, there'd immediately be objections or suggestions such as, why not the hagiographies about St Francis of Assisi, or St Theresa of Avila's writings on the 'Interior Castle' or Julian of Norwich or The Philokalia or ...
Nobody is suggesting that the Holy Spirit isn't working through hearts and minds today.
But achieving a consensus on 'additions' to the generally accepted NT canon ain't going to gain traction.
Besides, we have enough on trying to deal with what's there without adding more material to the mix.
And to what purpose?
No one is formally suggesting including the Letter from the Birmingham Jail (MLKjr) or Letters (Bonheoffer) in the canon. However, I think we can point to different writings that are "elevated" among certain groups--Luther's Works among Lutheran; CS Lewis among Protestants; MLKJr's writings among Black churches; Henri Nouwen, Karl Rehner among Roman Catholic; Alexander Schmemann, Elder Thaddeus among Orthodox; Rowan Williams, Desmond Tutu, N.T. Wright among Anglicans. The list will never end this side of eternity. Yes, the Holy Spirit still moves among the people.
Comments
Indeed, although part of me is still residually Protestant to give a nod at least to the saying, 'The Church through the Bible and the Bible through the Church.'
However we cut it, we can't have one without the other.
Except that the Church existed before the Bible and survived in places it was scarce or unavailable.
Don't think that's right, @Arethosemyfeet. The early church had the Hebrew Scriptures long before it broke away from the synagogue. The addition of Paul's letters and the Gospels plus the other books, did come later, true. But it aways had scriptures.
As much as I think MLK was a great man and those letters are really important, it doesn't sit right because the canon is about Jesus directly.
Those books deserve their own canon. And the church probably needs some kind of Talmud (I hope I'm not abusing that word) for all of the outtakes and extras we've accumulated over the centuries.
@Bullfrog, you say MLKjr's Letter from the Birmingham Jail does not mention Jesus directly. I hope you read the link to the letter which I provided above. True, Jesus is only mentioned once in "Was not Jesus an extremist for love. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you." However, the letter is saturated with biblical allusions. It is structured very much like Paul's prison letters; and it is grounded in the Christian Ethic of nonviolent love.
But, if you come down to it, several of the lesser letters of the New Testament have just as little of a reference to Jesus directly, if none at all. 3 John has no direct reference. Philemon mentions Christ in the salutations, but does not mention Jesus elsewhere. James only mentions the Lord Jesus Christ in the introduction, but has no other reference.
I was taught the letters in the Bible were accepted on the basis that they were written by an apostle with direct knowledge of Christ, though, some modern scholars now question the authorship of the pastoral letters, which we have been discussing above.
I would agree, we could use a more Talmudic level for such sacred writings too.
That was, I believe, the point of the canon. They were texts attested to by the earliest apostles as authoritative in terms of Jesus' life and times, and the life and times of his earliest followers. And even there are some interesting edge cases...memory is hazy but there's one called The Shepherd of Hermas. And I've always had a soft spot for the Acts of Paul and Thekla.
I understand the authorship question, but as noted I'm not as certain of some of the uncertainty of authorship, not so much so that I'll second guess people who were a lot closer to the source than I am. I find the arguments for pseudepigrapha interesting, but not compelling, though I do look askance at 2 Peter.
But works from the 20th century, while very important, do not approach Jesus's corporeal life and times even remotely, so I think it's dangerous to canonize them.
Something like a Talmud just makes more sense. And maybe we should find a way to make better use of that. Though, I think a lot of us hardly have time to give the Bible the attention it deserves anyway!
Most of the canon is not about Jesus directly. Parts are, other parts can be seen to provide a link or insight into Jesus. A large part has no connection.
Where is the evidence for the tradition?
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
Emphasis mine
Then Jesus said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’
With the understanding that Law, Prophets and Psalms make up the three divisions of the Tanakh -the Torah (the five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim (the Writings).
My point was that the late Metropolitan said that discussions at that kind of level would be required if the NT canon were to be extended in future.
Thing is, we might all have favourite material we would like to see canonised whether it be Dr King's letters or Bonhoeffer's writings as per @Gramps49's choices, or the poetry of George Herbert or G M Hopkins or the Easter Homily of St John Chrysostom or whatever else.
Who'd decide?
Who would have the casting vote?
What if someone wanted the writings of Mary Baker Eddy canonised, or something by Joel Osteen or even less contentious material such as Spurgeon's sermons included?
Apparently the Serbian Patriarch authorised the latter to be read in churches in his jurisdiction, so they do have an appeal beyond their original constituency.
But to get a consensus on any of these things would be harder than achieving a consensus on the Top 20 pop songs of all times or the best ever films or novels.
The criterion for the NT was books believes to be written by the Apostles or by disciples of the apostles based directly on the Apostles' testimony. A Council could remove books from the canon if one thought books were there in error, but it couldn't add later books without changing the rationale for the collection.
One could I suppose create a third anthology.
Not meaning to trivialise it. In context, I meant we shouldn't take their culture as one to emulate. I meant we needed to understand that the people writing were limited.
There is often things we can learn from seriously flawed people. But it is critical to understand their flaws.
Traditions have - far too often - taken the flaws and elevated them to Divine law.
(Ruth, you are always awesome, and always valid in your points. Never want to upset you.)
Luke's "everything written about me" implies that Luke perceives that there were parts, a subset, of those writings that were about Jesus, and Luke was likely written no earlier than AD 70.
Note that (from Wikipedia) there is more than Psalms in the Ketuvim.
I would think that a “move . . . to place” the Letter in the canon of Scripture would mean organized efforts advocating for both (re)opening the canon and for adding the letter, and taking concrete actions to try and make that happen, like petitioning decision-making bodies. This is just one person saying that if the canon is reopened, she’d like to see the Letter added to it.
I was always taught that Song of Songs is an analogy for the Church being the Bride of Christ. Jonah was taught as a foreshadowing of Christ bringing salvation to the Gentiles.
When all you have is a hammer Christology everything looks like a nail foreshadowing of Christ.
That's very funny, and also true.
The trouble comes in when Christ himself does it: remember the sign of Jonah? Matthew 12: 39-41
Sometimes you find an actual nail. I think there's a difference between (with apologies to professor Tolkien) applicability and allegory, however. You obviously can read Song of Songs as allegorical of Christ's love for the Church but to teach it as "the" way to understand it is stretching things too far.
Much as I enjoy singing "Ezechiēlis porta" I find it hard to convince myself that Ezekiel's sealed door is a reference to the BVM.
Other than several black ministers calling the Letter from the Birmingham Jail an epistle for modern times, there has been no formal move to insert it into the canon. However, it is often referred to as a classic of Christian ethics, much like Augustine's Confessions.
The Pauline books-- at least those letters you reference as being undisputedly attributed to Paul are almost unique in that assertion, while several of the remaining New Testament writings are author unknown. Even the gospels are in this category, where we don't really know definitively who wrote them, they are considered anonymous and though they bear a name, it could well be a pseudonym, or simply an associated assignment.
No one assumes Moby Dick was written by the sperm whale of that name.
No, it was written by Ishmael. (Sorry, I just had to insert that.)
ha ha. Yes, of course. Isaac's brother from another mother.
I struggle with that, 'Tell it not in Gath.'
It's to do with the way the Orthodox, and presumably the RCs ? - do hermeneutics.
I'm happy to along with it provided we are not saying it's what the original authors had in mind.
Equally, I've yet to be convinced that all the names of 'The Seventy' are actually their names. It looks to me as if someone's hoovered up whatever names are floating around in the NT and thought, 'Right, they must be one of the 70 ...'
Onesimus is one of them. Was he or wasn't he?
But it makes for a colourful church life.
They haven't thrown me out yet.
@Gamma Gamaliel Just keep dancing on the edge, as they would say in seminary.
That said, one has to be careful about what the early assignments of authorship are, given that lots of known early Christians share the same few names, and later tradition tended to simplify things by conflating Johns and Marks and Marys.
The early assignments are:
Matthew: anonymous, but based on or including a document by the apostle Matthew that recorded Jesus' sayings.
Mark: a companion of Peter, but not necessarily the John Mark of Acts.
Luke: a companion of Paul.
John: the teacher of Polycarp, a disciple of Jesus, who was not one of the Apostles.
I'm not on the edge on everything of course.
Certainly not. In a lot of cases you're right in the middle.
I understand these things to be both foreshadowings of Christ and also other things on other levels.
A bit of clarification on John. The ancient sources say the Gospel was written by the apostle of John. The key source is Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (late 2nd century), who explicitly says:
Polycarp was taught by “John, the disciple of the Lord.”
This John lived into old age in Ephesus.
This John was the one who “leaned on the Lord’s breast” (a Johannine identifier).
This John was the one who wrote the Gospel.
That said, The modern theory is that the Gospel of John was written within a Johannine community. The text not as the product of a single author writing in isolation, but as the culmination of a long process of memory, interpretation, conflict, and theological reflection within a distinct network of Jesus‑followers. Three major scholars—Raymond E. Brown, J. Louis Martyn, and Francis J. Moloney—offer the clearest articulation of this model.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannine_community
If this is true, then there was a strong feminine voice within the community. You can see it in the way feminine characters were presented within the book of John. I would go so far as to say, certain stories, like the crucifixion and the resurrection was told by a woman.
My source for this is Bauckham, in his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. He argues that when Irenaeus refers to the John who was one of the Twelve, he uses 'Son of Zebedee,' presumably as an aid to disambiguation. The one who leaned on the Lord's breast is a common descriptor of the author of the Gospel among early Christian writers, but is, Bauckham says, not ever used in cases where the Son of Zebedee is clearly the one referred to. Bauckham says that Irenaeus does on occasion refer to the writer of the gospel as an apostle, but that he calls a lot of people, who were not members of the twelve, such as Barnabas and John the Baptist, apostles too.
I'm referring to the formulation of the canon back in the third century, specifically the New Testament. My recollection from a class in seminary was that the folks who decided the canon did have a specific list of qualifications and a specific list of texts they applied them to. But they mostly accepted the Tanakh of the time as it was. And Protestants shortened it because Luther talked to some rabbis in the middle ages and took their advice as to which texts were authoritative when Jesus was alive.
This is all from recollection, I'll happily take fact checks.
I don't know specifics, but it would make sense since the events in those texts were still relatively recent history when he was alive. They wouldn't have had time to settle into the "Scripture" yet, which agrees with what (I was told) the rabbis told Luther.
I'd be happy if someone here had closer contact in general with the scholarship of how the Christian canon was formed in the first place. I know we talked about it in seminary, and my prof was a Roman Catholic who had a passion for early history, but I don't remember close details.
Yes, but as Psalms is the first book of the Ketuvim, “the Psalms” has traditionally been used as a synecdoche for the Ketuvim. That’s how it appears to be used in the passage from Luke that @Anna_Baptist quotes.
Ha ha!
Well, plenty of Shipmates were urging me to come down off the fence to ease my calloused backside and give them a break from my internal monologues as I moved from an evangelical to a post-evangelical position to where I am now.
I know I clash with you @Arethosemyfeet and @chrisstiles on politics occasionally but often find myself in broad agreement on some issues.
Anyhow ... on the issue of the canon, I wish I could speak more knowledgeably on the issue.
I've not been to seminary or received formal theological training but I'm broadly aware of the arguments on the Protestant side as well as the Orthodox and RC positions.
I have come down on a particular 'side' of course.
I don't think it's a 'both-sides-ism' response to say that we all need to steer clear of popular caricatures that represent on the one hand, the idea that the 'deutero-canonical' books are somehow tainted, twisted and evil (I've come across this) or that the Reformers wickedly tore chunks out of the 'received' scriptures because they were arrogant and thought they knew better than Holy Church.
Confession time.
I've not read Tobit and Maccabees yet.
Perhaps that should form part of my Lenten discipline this year.
That there are similarities with one account and another as well as divergence from one another shouldn't be surprising whatsoever.
Circling back to the OP and Paul's letters, there is little doubt with respect to the time of writing nor the authorship. I personally don't find the argument against to be very compelling.
There seems to be little to no concern about who put together our (now) widely accepted canon. I'm not sure why this idea should be so concerning today. Unless the Spirit isn't moving in and working through hearts and minds as it once did. I suppose that's as likely as anything else.
Nobody is suggesting that the Holy Spirit isn't working through hearts and minds today.
But achieving a consensus on 'additions' to the generally accepted NT canon ain't going to gain traction.
Besides, we have enough on trying to deal with what's there without adding more material to the mix.
And to what purpose?
No one is formally suggesting including the Letter from the Birmingham Jail (MLKjr) or Letters (Bonheoffer) in the canon. However, I think we can point to different writings that are "elevated" among certain groups--Luther's Works among Lutheran; CS Lewis among Protestants; MLKJr's writings among Black churches; Henri Nouwen, Karl Rehner among Roman Catholic; Alexander Schmemann, Elder Thaddeus among Orthodox; Rowan Williams, Desmond Tutu, N.T. Wright among Anglicans. The list will never end this side of eternity. Yes, the Holy Spirit still moves among the people.