How the New Testament books were chosen

[Ruhanv]

I have just finished a mini project outlining the formation of the NT. There are a lot of posts covering this subject recently, yet there seems to be a lot of confusion about this subject. Here it is:
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The New Testament did not fall from heaven as it is today but came to us through a long, arduous and contentious process.

During the first 20 years after Jesus' death, the early Christian church relied heavily on stories told to one another. They did not place any value on writing these down, possibly because most of them were fairly uneducated and could not read nor write. Slowly they started to compile collections of Jesus' sayings, however these were still fairly limited in their narrative. There was no mention of the virgin birth, miracles, crucifixion and the resurrection.

By the mid 1st century. numerous gospels, epistles and other texts started circulating amongst the Christian churches. First came the epistles by Paul such as 1 Thessalonians which are our earliest books from the NT. Gospels such the gospel of Thomas and the Q were amongst our earliest gospels developed however it is important to note that the latter has never been found. Mark was the first to produce a gospel using a specific structure for the narrative of the gospel. This structure was was later on copied by the authors of both Matthew and Luke. Some scholars believe this structure was "borrowed" from Homer's epic which contains a near exact narrative structure. The Gospel of John seems to have been written around 90 AD.

In addition to this we had the acts of Peter, the Apocalypses of Peter and John, the book of Barnabas, Hermas, the gospel of Mary, the gospels of the Hebrews, Ebionites and the list goes on an on. Below is the listing of the main events in the process which led to the formation of the NT:

- 95 CE I Clement is written by the church father Clement. He quotes sayings by Jesus that are not in any of the gospels found since. He also refers to Paul's letters and never mentions any written gospels, which indicates that these were not well known by this stage. Clement also only refers to Paul's letters as wise council and reserves the use of the word "scriptures" for the Old Testament.

- 110 CE The Didache is written by the orthodox church fathers and it quotes from the Gospel of Matthew (it only calls it "The gospel of Jesus"), in addition to quotes directly from the Old Testament. The church fathers Origen, Clement of Alexandria and the churches in Egypt considered the Didache to be inspired scripture.

- 110 - 140 CE Papias writes down his collection of sayings. He did not trust any of the gospels nor the epistles but decided to rely on oral tradition (stories told in the marketplace). Some of his quotations do indeed seem to come from some form of Matthew and Mark but he never attributes these to the gospels themselves. Some of his claims have a sense of Baron Munchausen about them such as Judas' head swelling to become wider than the width of a wagon trail so that his eyes were lost in the flesh, and that the place where he died maintained a stench so bad that no one, even to his own day, would go near it. At the very least we can get a sense of the type of stories doing the rounds by this time. Papias also noted that the author of Mark was a younger secretary of Peter's who had never met or seen Jesus himself. Once again we don't know how reliable this is, however Eusebius used this source to repeat the claim about Markan authorship.

- 100 - 154 CE The book of Hermas is written by a man who supposedly had known Paul (Romans 16:14). The early church so revered this work that they included it in what they considered to be inspired scripture. The books of Hermas was considered inspired scripture even as late as the 4th century.

- 100 - 200 CE The Christian church begins to grow into various segments such as the Orthodox (later split into Catholic and Coptic), Ebionites, Nazarenes and Marcionites amongst others. Various gospels and epistles were written and copiers were changing texts to fit in with their own agendas. Due to pressure from Roman authorities who saw Christianity as a social problem, the various Christian groups began competing for Roman favour. The Gnostics would blame the Orthodox church for any problems with the Roman authorities and vice versa. Any anti Roman sentiments within their literature would be frowned upon and any anti-Semitic texts were applauded by the Roman authorities. This in particular influenced some of the gospels and epistles which were being produced and copied during this time. For example the verse "Give unto Caesar what is due onto Caesar" and the reduced responsibility of the Roman authorities during the crucifixion could be viewed as possible examples of this.

- 140 CE The first canon is recorded by Marcion who was a Gnostic church father. Marcion strongly supported Paul but he believed that Jesus' God was a different from the God that the Hebrews worshiped. He included a heavily edited version of Luke and Paul's epistles but excluded everything else, including the entire Old Testament. Marcion in general rejected anything Jewish including the gospel of Matthew and the book of Hebrews. The Orthodox responded to this and wrote various anti-Marcionite literature, calling him a heretic. Some scholars believe that 2 Peter was produced as part of this response against Marcion. What is important to note is that this was the first canon and all of Marcion's books made it into the final Orthodox canon centuries later. Some of Marcion's own editing as well as his prefaces to Paul's epistles were even included in the Latin Vulgate itself.

- 150 CE Justin Martyr refers to the Gospels as the "Memoirs of the Apostles", He refers to Mark as the "Memoirs of Peter". An idea he probably got from Papias or from the same oral tradition that Papias received it. Justin goes on to describe church services where these "memoirs" were being read alongside the Old Testament. This gave rise to an interest in these texts and helped established the idea that the Gospels should be seen as being equal to the Old Testament scripture.

- 156 CE A new movement within the early church started to develop called Montanism. They prayed in tongues and primarily preached apocalyptic teachings such as the famous old "the end is nigh". They shunned educated clerics and admitted women to their clergy. You could say that they were very similar to our modern day evangelical churches. They were also seen as demonic by the Orthodox church in their reliance on personal revelation as opposed to the scriptures themselves. This started to drive the Orthodox church in forming an official version of the New Testament. It's at this time when the term "New Testament" is first mentioned. What is interesting is that the church did not want to include the book of Revelation in this canon as it was very similar to the Montanists' apocalyptical ideas.

- 161 - 180 CE Dionysius complains that certain people have changed his own letters written to the various church and goes onto complain that even his version of Mark contains too many errors and additions to be reliable. Eusebius thus became one of the main sponsors for the formalising the books which would be considered inspired as well as the preferred versions of those books.

- 170 CE The first Orthodox canon is produced by Tatian, a convert of Justin Martyr, from the Syrian church. This canon was actually a Syrian translation and not in the original Greek. He decided upon the four gospels which have today, possibly because his mentor also supported these four gospels. He included Paul's epistles and Acts but forbid that anything else be read in the church.

- 170 CE The first attack against any questionable texts is launched by the Orthodox church when a well meaning priest is exiled after he created the Acts of Paul in honour of Paul. The Acts of Paul is still included in the Armenian church's Bible today. Interestingly enough Tertullian attacked the book not because it was falsified but because it depicted a woman teaching on the baptism. Only men were allowed to teach within the Orthodox church. It shows that even at this stage, texts were not necessarily accepted or rejected on their historical validity but rather on the subjective ideologies of the church fathers.

- 325 CE The Council of Nicea meet to discuss Jesus' divinity. Arianism opposed this idea and they under Arius believed that Jesus was not equal to God himself. The Orthodox church opposed this view and supported the doctrine that Jesus was equal to and part of God himself. The council's decision, after much discussion, was that Jesus was indeed equal to God. It's worth noting that the only two bishops who voted against this notion, were exiled and lost all their material possessions and property. The canonization of scripture was also discussed but they could not agree on a single canon.


Continued...

[Ruhanv]

- 327 CE Eusebius writes the fifth and final revision of the "History of the Church". This had previously been revised following his conversion from Arianism. At this stage there was still not any agreement in regards to the official Biblical canon. In this book he states the different considerations for books that are nominated for inclusion into the Bible. He lists three types of texts categories:
- Texts that are recognized as inspired by every orthodox author he knows.
- Texts that are considered inspired by some orthodox authors but disputed by other authors.
- Texts that are considered to be heretical by all orthodox authors.

Thus Eusebius himself used his own subjective criteria (orthodox) to select his canon. He identified the four gospels, no more and no less because of mythical and numerological reasons (Irenaeus and Cyprian used these criteria before as well). He also includes Acts, Paul's epistles, Hebrews, 1 Peter and 1 John. He mentions that the book of Revelation is disputed but confusingly still includes it into the first category.
He then goes on to list the disputed texts but not heretical texts, which included James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, the Acts of Paul, Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, Barnabas, Gospel of the Hebrews and book called the "Teachings of the Apostles". To confuse matters further, he also included the book of Revelation into this category.
Lastly he listed the books which he considered to be heretical, which were the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias, and the Acts of Andrew and John.

- 327 CE Eusebius states that he was commissioned by Constantine to produce 50 pristine copies of the officially recognised imperial Bible. We are not sure exactly what these copies looked like, however scholars found the Codex Sinaiticus developed in the 4th century, which is a possible copy of Eusebius' Bible. It includes the four Gospels, Acts, Paul's epistles, Hebrews, seven Catholic epistles, the book of Revelation, Barnabas and the book of Hermas. The Vaticanus Codex was also discovered that dates from this same period. It contains similar material in the same order. Both of these texts are incomplete however and we don't know if any other books were included. Finally it is impossible to discuss Eusebius' work without addressing his character. The 19th century historian Jacob Burckhardt, describes Eusebius as "the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity". Eusebius himself said that "It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment." This is an alarming passage as he also stated that he believed that Moses used certain falsehoods in the book of Genesis in order to persuade the people to follow in the footsteps of God. How far did Eusebius go? Did he use falsehoods as in order to persuade people? Scholars do believe that Eusebius forged certain documents including official letters by Antoninus Pius and possibly even the Testamonium Flavianum itself. Unfortunately he is our main source for much of what know regarding the church fathers and it was his personal theology which formed the bedrock on which the NT canon was based.

- 350 CE Bishop Cyril develops a series of lectures for the churches in Jerusalem, which would cover all aspect of Orthodox Christianity. Included in this is the first official announcement from a senior ranking official of the church in regards to which books are recognized by the church as being part of the NT canon. Cyril declares that no other books are to be read, not even privately. His canon consists of all the books we have in our NT canon today, however he excludes the book of Revelation.

- 363 CE The Synod of Laodicea is held in Asia Minor to decide the official contents of the Bible. The result was the the following announcement: "Let no private psalms nor any uncanonical books be read in the church, but only canonical ones of the New and Old Testament". Once again they use the same list as the Cyril produced and excludes the book of Revelation. We have no indication as to how they came to this conclusion but it has been suggested that they simply relied on Syril's previous canon.

- 367 CE Athanasius who was the Bishop of Alexandria had previously published a book called the Festal Epistle. This book contained the the dates for all Christian festivals and it was considered the authoritative statement on these festivals by the Catholic church. Like Eusebius, Athanasius was fiercely anti-Arian and a conservative. In 367 CE extended the scope of this epistle and included his canon into it as well. This was considered an authoritative statement by both the Syrian and Western churches. His canon included Revelation and looked exactly like our modern canon today. It's worth noting that even at this stage, there was still some dispute in regards to the canon. Gregory of Nazianzus for example continued to protest the inclusion of Revelation, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John and 3 John.

- 692 CE There was continued debate amongst the various bishop in regards to the NT canon. Finally in 692 the Trullan Synod was convened under Emperor Justinian. The synod declared that they considered both the Synod of Laodicea and Athanasius' canon's to be authoritative, even though these contradicted each other in regards to the book of Revelation. They also included 2 letters they attributed to Clement as well as 8 other books "which it is not appropriate to make public before all, because of the mysteries contained in them." These are now lost to us but one can only speculate what could have contained. This contradictory decision gave rise to much confusion and there were at least 6 different canons used by churches in the East even as late as the 10th century. The Syrian churches still exclude Revelation from their Bibles to this day.

- 7th - 16th century CE Various canons began to circulate in both the Eastern and Western churches. The Eastern Bibles still differ today from our Western canon.

- 1546 CE The Council of Trent finally recognizes the canon we have today as an article of faith. During the course of the next century Protestant churches also agree on the same 27 books in the NT Canon.

The road which led to the formation of the New Testament was thus not simple and certainly not inspired in any shape or form. We had extreme disagreements not just amongst the early church fathers but also between the Eastern and Western churches. The criteria used to decide which books were included and excluded were ever changing and often church councils would contradict each other. Some of the earliest disputed texts such as Revelation and 2 Peter were included, whilst some of the texts which were recognised by the 2nd century churches such as Hermas was finally excluded. Political, geographical, religious and cultural aspects all influenced this process. It reflects how we seek out truth, deny truth, have prejudices, agree and disagree, love and hate. It is the product of 1600 years worth of humanity.


Sources:
Offline:
B. Metzger -The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
B. Ehrman - Lost Scriptures - Books that did not make it into the New Testament
Online:
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html
http://www.ntcanon.org/table.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Canon

[Heavily Armed]

That's an exhaustive research Ruhanv. That may be the form by which the New Testament came about, assuming you and your sources are accurate. That said, I"ll disagree with your assertion at the end that the scriptures aren't inspired (the inspired word of God). God can work through men, over time and throughout history. Through good and bad, things go according to His plan. Being God, his power is absolute. Getting us exactly the books He wanted in the New Testament was a simple thing for Him, even though the process itself might seem to be contrary, convoluted, and took place over several centuries.

[Ruhanv]

Originally Posted by Heavily Armed

That's an exhaustive research Ruhanv. That may be the form by which the New Testament came about, assuming you and your sources are accurate. That said, I"ll disagree with your assertion at the end that the scriptures aren't inspired (the inspired word of God). God can work through men, over time and throughout history. Through good and bad, things go according to His plan. Being God, his power is absolute. Getting us exactly the books He wanted in the New Testament was a simple thing for Him, even though the process itself might seem to be contrary, convoluted, and took place over several centuries.

You could believe that (by faith) but then you would essentially place your faith in Eusebius and his ilk, not God himself. Remember that the Western NT canon was not settled until the 16th century and that Bibles were only being printed in mass until a few decades later. So this is a fairly late favour for God to bestow on the church.

There is another question though which is which canon is indeed inspired, the Catholic or the Coptic? They both contain the same problems and contradictions.

[Heavily Armed]

Originally Posted by Ruhanv

You could believe that (by faith) but then you would essentially place your faith in Eusebius and his ilk, not God himself. Remember that the Western NT canon was not settled until the 15th century and that Bibles were only being printed in the 16th century. So this is a fairly late favour for God to bestow on the church.

There is another question though which is which canon is indeed inspired, the Catholic or the Coptic? They both contain the same problems and contradictions.

Whether by Eusebius or others, if it 's God's will, it will be accomplished. Therefore those books He wanted to be included in the New Testament, were. Those He didn't want, weren't. My faith is in God, no matter the tools (people) used.

What are the contradictions you mention?

Oh, and God had to have the Guttenberg Press up and running so the Bible could be mass produced. If only the internet were available sooner...

[Ruhanv]

Originally Posted by Heavily Armed

Whether by Eusebius or others, if it 's God's will, it will be accomplished. Therefore those books He wanted to be included in the New Testament, were. Those He didn't want, weren't. My faith is in God, no matter the tools (people) used.

What are the contradictions you mention?

Oh, and God had to have the Guttenberg Press up and running so the Bible could be mass produced. If only the internet were available sooner...

Which New Testament? Eusebius included Hermas and Barnabas. Later on Revelation was included but Jude, 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter were excluded but finally included again.

Even today the Coptic NT contains different books from the Catholic NT, so are you saying that the Catholic canon is inspired but the Coptiic one isn't?

[pastorgbc]

I think you have done an excellent job. I am particularly impressed with your discussion of Marcion (with the exception of the 2 Peter reference). I do believe there are some issues in what you have written:

1. I believe the description of the earliest writings is in error. I believe the NT the Scriptures, with the exception of the writings of John, were completed by 68 AD. This includes the full gospels as we know them.

2. Clement 1 does include discussion of the gospels.

3. What is often omitted in the discussion of the transmission of the scriptures that in addtion to the "church fathers" and their writings, the scriptures were in wide circulation among the common christian folks. This was the impetus for the identification of the canon; church fathers, as you point out were subject to bias and politics.

4. Although I am not an evanglical and take no umbrage, Montanism would probably be only consistent with the most charismatic of charismatic churches. One of the great distinctives of the Montanist was that the believed Montanus was in fact the Holy Spirit incarnated.

5. I would be interested to see you do a little more on some of the other great debates that helped form parts of the early church such as the chiliastic debates.

Ray

[Ruhanv]

Hi Ray,

As always I appreciate your input.

Originally Posted by pastorgbc

I think you have done an excellent job. I am particularly impressed with your discussion of Marcion (with the exception of the 2 Peter reference). I do believe there are some issues in what you have written:

In regards to my reference on 2 Peter, I did state "some" scholars not "all" believed that it was a response to Marcion. I do believe that as even Eusebius considered 2 Peter to be a later addition that it was a fair comment. You have to admit that 2 Peter was doubted by most church fathers as it was omitted from the majority of early canons.

1. I believe the description of the earliest writings is in error. I believe the NT the Scriptures, with the exception of the writings of John, were completed by 68 AD. This includes the full gospels as we know them.

Even you have to admit that your view is more based on your faith in an inerrant NT than it is on historical reasoning. As Mark and the other synoptics refer to the destruction of the temple, from a historical point of view we have to accept that it was written post 70 AD. I understand where you are coming from as you view it as prophetic but I simply cannot accept that as I don't recognise the prophetic. Even if a part of Mark was written pre 70 CE, then the destruction of the temple part had to be written post 70 CE.

2. Clement 1 does include discussion of the gospels.

I do believe he mentioned the apocryphal gospels such as secret Mark which is dubious in and of it self. Could you provide an example where he refers to the synoptics themselves? It would be helpful.

3. What is often omitted in the discussion of the transmission of the scriptures that in addtion to the "church fathers" and their writings, the scriptures were in wide circulation among the common christian folks. This was the impetus for the identification of the canon; church fathers, as you point out were subject to bias and politics.

This is really relies on the timeline of the texts themselves. Some texts were in wide circulation around 100 CE (Mark) and were only mentioned much later such as 2 Peter and Revelation. The church fathers however did have a bias. If Gnostics were more organised for instance, we would have considered Marcion to be a church father today.

4. Although I am not an evanglical and take no umbrage, Montanism would probably be only consistent with the most charismatic of charismatic churches. One of the great distinctives of the Montanist was that the believed Montanus was in fact the Holy Spirit incarnated.

Fair enough and point taken. I will correct it accordingly.

5. I would be interested to see you do a little more on some of the other great debates that helped form parts of the early church such as the chiliastic debates.

Ray

In my research (and this might not be sufficient) I have not really seen how chilliasm (the belief that Christ will reign for a 1000 years???) has been detrimental to the establishment of the canon. Maybe you could comment on this?

[Heavily Armed]

Originally Posted by Ruhanv

Which New Testament? Eusebius included Hermas and Barnabas. Later on Revelation was included but Jude, 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter were excluded but finally included again.

Even today the Coptic NT contains different books from the Catholic NT, so are you saying that the Catholic canon is inspired but the Coptiic one isn't?

The New Testament as it stands today; the final product as opposed to the process by which it came about. Man finally got it right.

I'm not catholic, so the books common to the two, coptic and catholic, are inspired. The apochrypha I disagree with.

[Ruhanv]

Originally Posted by Heavily Armed

The New Testament as it stands today; the final product as opposed to the process by which it came about. Man finally got it right.

I'm not catholic, so the books common to the two, coptic and catholic, are inspired. The apochrypha I disagree with.

Based on what? The fact that they finally could agree on some books 1600 years after they were written? How is this process divine?

[Heavily Armed]

Originally Posted by Ruhanv

Based on what? The fact that they finally could agree on some books 1600 years after they were written? How is this process divine?

Do you understand the term "divinely inspired"? You're looking at the human process alone. The belief in divine inspiration takes into account that there is a God. And God, the Creator, all-powerful, can certainly provide for us His word; the Bible. Do you think such a thing could be thwarted by man? That seems to be your position. Either there is God or there isn't. We have obviously have different beliefs on this point.

[coontang]

Good work Ruhanv. That was a good read.

[Pumpin45_s]

It looks like you did quite a bit of research and probably did a pretty good job (I've only read a little so far). However, I find it a little humorous that I cited some information from Bruce Metzger proving some of the "contradictions" wrong people come up with in the gospels, and someone here said that he was too fundamental or too conservative or something along those lines. Therefore, we can't take his word. You seem to be pretty liberal in your views, and here you've used him.

[Fitqb]

Good post Ruhanv... I learned a lot from that.

This whole "process" really takes the "divinity" out of the bible, if you ask me. Whenever you need a council to vote on the "word of god" the whole thing goes down the ****ter, in my mind.

Essentially, the bible was a marketing device.

EDIT: I'd rep you, but I still haven't been given my reps back.

[powerman2000]

Originally Posted by Ruhanv

I have just finished a mini project outlining the formation of the NT. There are a lot of posts covering this subject recently, yet there seems to be a lot of confusion about this subject. Here it is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------




During the first 20 years after Jesus' death, the early Christian church relied heavily on stories told to one another. They did not place any value on writing these down, possibly because most of them were fairly uneducated and could not read nor write.

Geez, I don't even have the time, as I am not obssesed like someone else we know, to point out all of the corrections needed because of all the subtle twisting of the truth in your "project". Right off the bat in your first paragraph you are in error and make several degrading comments to coincide with your statement. Which is, oh so typical for you. It was customary at the time for information to be more commonly relayed by word of mouth. It wasn't because the didn't place any value on that information. That was a nice little barb on your part Ruhanv. Also, since you wrote yourself that they "possibly" weren't very educated why go on to mention they couldn't read or write? What difference does that make with any of this especially when you have absolutely no idea as to the extent of anyone's reading or writing abilities back then? Just another attempt by you to attack Christianity in any way you can. Your pathetic! This is why I don't take time to fully address some of your posts because they aren't even worthy. I'll admit, you diguise things well when you lie, but then again you've been taught by the master himself.

[Ruhanv]

Originally Posted by Pumpin45_s

It looks like you did quite a bit of research and probably did a pretty good job (I've only read a little so far). However, I find it a little humorous that I cited some information from Bruce Metzger proving some of the "contradictions" wrong people come up with in the gospels, and someone here said that he was too fundamental or too conservative or something along those lines. Therefore, we can't take his word. You seem to be pretty liberal in your views, and here you've used him.

Metzger is actually a Christian and in his early 90's. Some of his books such as the Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament have been the staple NT text books in both conservative and liberal seminaries for the past 3 decades or so. He was only one of the sources though but this stuff is basic church history.

[Ruhanv]

Originally Posted by powerman2000

Geez, I don't even have the time, as I am not obssesed like someone else we know, to point out all of the corrections needed because of all the subtle twisting of the truth in your "project". Right off the bat in your first paragraph you are in error and make several degrading comments to coincide with your statement. Which is, oh so typical for you. It was customary at the time for information to be more commonly relayed by word of mouth. It wasn't because the didn't place any value on that information. That was a nice little barb on your part Ruhanv. Also, since you wrote yourself that they "possibly" weren't very educated why go on to mention they couldn't read or write? What difference does that make with any of this especially when you have absolutely no idea as to the extent of anyone's reading or writing abilities back then? Just another attempt by you to attack Christianity in any way you can. Your pathetic! This is why I don't take time to fully address some of your posts because they aren't even worthy. I'll admit, you diguise things well when you lie, but then again you've been taught by the master himself.

I won't go down to your level in regards to personal remarks, however I will address your points:

1) I said they placed no value on writing these down. I didn't say they didn't place any value on the sayings themselves. It was simply not important to them to record them but they relied on oral tradition which was the norm amongst the lower classes. You are obviously trying to read something into my statement that is simply not there.

2) When it comes to the writing, copying, distribution and reading of early texts, their levels of literacy is imperative in understanding the context in which this took place. Early texts were copied by fairly illiterate people and this was recognised by the early church fathers.

Lastly I do take issue with your personal attacks. In this post you have called me "pathetic" and a liar, without once being able to identify any "lie" as such. There is no need for this.

[Ruhanv]

Originally Posted by Heavily Armed

Do you understand the term "divinely inspired"? You're looking at the human process alone. The belief in divine inspiration takes into account that there is a God. And God, the Creator, all-powerful, can certainly provide for us His word; the Bible. Do you think such a thing could be thwarted by man? That seems to be your position. Either there is God or there isn't. We have obviously have different beliefs on this point.

We do have different views on this but I just wanted to provide some more information on the historical process. Any view that this process had a divine hand in it is purely an issue of faith.